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The good: none of my competitors have been added in 4 months.
The bad: No sites have been added in my category in about 4 months.
I follow up with RZ, every month, on the dot, to check status, and all I get from the editors over there is sarcasm and insults.
Why does anyone even bother with DMOZ anymore? Thanks to DMOZ, I wish the machines took over the world in Matrix Revolutions.
jd
>>The rule is simple, and direct from staff: an editor should never feel compelled to add a site he doesn't feel like adding. Period.<<
>>Some editors like to work in badly backlogged or relatively neglected categories. Some editors even like to collect teams to do that. That's fine. Some editors prefer to build previously nonexistant categories for which no web content is yet available.<<
One definition of quality is consistency. If you have 100 people that have 100 different points they consider important, then you may have a problem with consistency.
>>The 50,000th "web design shop" doesn't have much value<<
So that person would not have the same rights as the other 49,999? There may be some legal issues there with unfair trade. What is to stop someone from claiming that it was discrimination that kept them from getting listed? Perhaps some are discrimination. I don’t know, I’m just throwing up a possibility.
Example, I recently got a new category listing. Two different editors, same topic. I suspect that one editor is bias towards us for commercial reasons. I believe this based on some real evidence, but same topic, pretty much. If I was listed in one, then I should be listed in the other. This space is not that big, and one editor visited our site in about a week, the other editor, even though I have submitted several times over the last year, does not even bother visiting our site.
>>And in the long run, that's all that matters: less work getting done means longer queues for everyone.<<
You are right about ‘less work’, as long as that is not a crutch for less than desirable activities.
rfgdxm1
>>almost all cases, getting added to the ODP doesn't help much with the PageRank of a site.<<
Not what I see. If you get added to one DMOZ cat, and 5000 web sites license the DMOZ list, then there are 5000 inbounds. If you get listed in 10 cats, some made up on the fly as hutcheson indicated, and I have seen some with no distinction from others, now you have 50000 inbounds. How to you figure it doesn’t help much?
Yes, the ODP has a mission that involves making linking choices objectively, and if there's prejudicial abuse going on it should be reported to the ODP management, because it's their site and they care about that. But they aren't going to go yell at people doing productive volunteer work because they aren't doing more of it. I think the concept of volunteer work is not registering with some of you. If you're down on your luck and don't get a free turkey dinner from the neighborhood church this Christmas, are you going to sue the little old lady next door for only volunteering 5 hours a week at the church instead of 10? The church is ecstatic she's there at all, and believe me the courts could not care less.
The ODP has direct opportunity to impact the level of competition in certain areas of the web. This is economic. It being associated with google further stresses how economic of an organization DMOZ is.
The ridiculous metaphor aside, I would question the morality of a church that gave free food to only certain people and rejected others based on the food servers' personal reasons.
You seem to think volunteerism provides the rights to be exempt of criticism. Volunteerism can be harmful as well as beneficial, so there is always room for criticism. And much valid criticism has been brought up in this thread.
No one has said that Joe Shmo's widget site shouldn't be listed (presuming it meets the guidelines, of course), just that none of us are duty bound to make sure that Joe Shmo's widget site be listed within a specific time frame or by a particular editor. What are you going to do? Force editors to edit in certain areas? Not going to happen. The Powers That Be at the ODP consider any site added to be a Good Thing and don't dictate that those sites added should be in any particular area of the directory. For example, I can edit anywhere and do but you're not likely to see me wading through online gift stores anytime soon because it doesn't interest me. Still, my adds elsewhere in the directory count for just as much as if I edited in online gift stores.
Agreed: if you have 100 people, then you have a problem with consistency. Take away 99 of those people, and you'll have taken away, um, 1% of that problem. You see, humans are fundamentally inconsistent. I place a very high value on biographical information about, say, James Montgomery: and would go to the trouble of hunting it down and scanning, proofing, and publishing it. I place very little value on biographical information about Oscar Wilde. Consistent? Yes, with my own values -- not necessarily with yours. The biggest advantage of having 10000 people with 10000 different points is that we get good coverage of 10000 different points, and an overall depth of content that is far more consistent than I or any other single editor could provide.
The problem, from YOUR point, is that all of these points are SURFERS -- editing as a WEBMASTER is unethical and is grounds for loss of editing privileges.
As for the poor guy who was the 50,000th Viagra shop (or actually, the 100,000 guys who, having seen 49,999 Viagra shops, wish to be among the top 10 of them) -- do they have any rights? Of course! They have the same rights anyone else does -- to look for a business that isn't already saturated (from, of course, the surfer's point of view); and to promote their commercial website via any of the thousands of programs set up for that purpose. In the roll of which the ODP is conspicuously absent.
It's easy to pick on the health nostrum shrouded affiliate sites. But how about that web designer? Again, look for something unique. Often, the location will be the ticket: there may be 50,000 web designers listed, but how many of them will make business appointments with potential customers in Podunk, New Jersey? -- Generally no more than a handful. So that same site (that would languish waiting for an editor to care about the 50,000th WD site) will be listed quickly if it is found to provide THAT unique service (and of course, submitted to the Regional/NA/US/NJ/Localities/P/Podunk/Business and Industry/Computers/Internet/etc. category).
Google gives almost all the clones PR0 for dup content. Take a look at some of the personal homepeges cats and find sites where the only inbound link is the ODP, and any possible clones. They really aren't hard to find. These sites don't have huge PR that would be consistent with thousands of links being counted.
Okay, then pick an example uncluttered by religious ideals or lofty morals. Say I volunteer at a local glee club washing people's poodles for free to raise interest in the glee club. Say I volunteer at this for three hours one Saturday. Say you own a Pekinese and are furious that I don't come back on Sunday to give -your- dog a free bath on my own spare time.
Do you really think you have the "right" to other people doing free things for you? You must live in the happy world. I ask again, have you ever volunteered for -anything- in real life? Whether it's for a noble cause, a silly cause, or something in-between, people who run organizations are *not* going to scream at volunteer workers for "only" working 10 hours a week or 5 hours a week or even 2 hours a week. They're going to happily say "thank you" for every bit of helpful work anyone contributes.
This is why there are thousands of people who like to volunteer some of their time to grateful organizations such as the ODP or the Poodle-Washing Glee Club, but very few people who want to spend their free time promoting the website or washing the dog of a selfish and demanding neighbor who thinks the world owes him a free lunch.
Is it time to give up on DMOZ?
I think you will get 3 answers to this question:
From an editor: No. But please become an editor and help out - being a voluteer editor is great fun and its really rewarding. If you don't, please become a searcher and use our site to find websites, and feel free to suggest sites to us occasionally but without any expectations that we will add them.
From a webmaster: No, I really wanted to say yes here, but no. I don't really understand your wacky, 'I'll add when I want to add' volunteer work ethic - but you are a non-profit org being used by a for-profit, growing industry and you are perceived to be effecting very profit driven websites - like mine. While I have a competitive bone in my body I'm not going to give up.
From a searcher: Huh? Who's DMOZ? I search at Google.
Makes for an interesting dynamic.
I search at both Google and the ODP. I run a search at Google, and if it lists a site with the link to the ODP cat it is in on the bottom that is relevant to my search, I check it.
The primary purpose of this forum is to exchange ideas and information about the directories.... And please remember: No whining is allowed.
I don't think we're exchanging ideas and information about ODP now; it looks like ODP bashing
Noneditor: I wish my site were added pronto, within 48 hours of submission
Editor: here's ODP's guidelines and what editors are expected to do
Noneditor: it sucks
Editor: nobody can be made to do more than a trifle of editing, so don't be too hard on someone volunteering to do something for free
Noneditor: let them ignore everyone else's site, but mine needs to be listed now
A typical discussion.
it looks like ODP bashing
But the issue is usually pitched in an either/or way. It assumes the existing social contract is has inhibiting factors for the growth of the OPD, and suggests only one alternative: that of payment.
That’s too simplistic.
If we are to evolve something that improves on the flaws (assuming, for the sake of posting, that there are correctable flaws) on the existing social contract, then we need first to generate a whole range of alternatives.
Here’s a few off of the top of my head.
The community service model
Convicted criminals (perhaps disaffected youth with computer skills) be ordered by the Courts to perform ODP editing as part of community service, probation, or other non-jail sentencing.
They would be required to report to some sort of detention center for a number of hours a week and add guideline-complaint sites to the ODP. A meta editor would confirm that they have met both the ODP and the sentencing/probation guidelines. Otherwise, they get jailed.
Potentially several thousand new editors could be set to work in this way, improving the directory for the whole worldwide community.
The blackmail model
A random number of webmasters, with sites listed in areas of the ODP that need some work, get emailed and told "give us the URLs of two unlisted guideline-compliant sites in your category within 30 days, or we remove your site -- for ever! If you go to the police, or attempt to slip in a mirror/affiliate of your site, all your sites will be removed"
That may cause some moral dilemmas for webmasters -- do they offer the URL of a competitor, or do they risk losing their own listing? That sort of dilemma would be good for the ODP as a whole, so it should be accepted as part of the model.
The alien abduction scenario
Meta editors build a UFO and land in remote farmland.
They abduct the locals, submit them to a fantastic lightshow, give them a rectal probe (otherwise people may later doubt the experience was genuine) and tell them that the Galactic Government Neighborhood Office on Saturn is gathering information on humans in order to save the planet from invasion by evil, giant, genetically-engineered megavoles from the planet Huches-Beta.
To save the Earth, The GGNO needs them to provide as much information as they can about humans by becoming editors on the thing you people call the "oh dee pee". If you don’t, the megavoles will mutilate your cattle. The GGNO is watching your every move, so make sure you stick to the editing guidelines.
The metas could probably add entire communities of new editors each night, thus doubling the number of editors in less than three months.
The no spam model
The Internet community as a whole ceases to submit mirrors, affiliates, deeplinks; stops hijacking domains; stops (in rare cases) harassing editors. This frees up so much time, that the OPD’s growth rate shoots up 25% overnight.
(I put that last one it just to show that there are some far-fetched possibilities. The other suggestions are downright doable in comparison).
Any others?
Any organizations I have been a part of on the basis of non-profit have achieved what they have through open-ness to the community, not defensive righteousness.
Without the support of non-editors, DMOZ will not survive. It isn't a wonder that all DMOZ threads turn into bashing... those that defend it humour those that criticize aspects of it.
We should begin a thread (if it has not already been created) that suggests the ideal replacement for DMOZ that Google should adopt under its directory department. Improving DMOZ is not only a difficult option, but won't be welcomed by DMOZ itself.
Schedules. The category editor(s) should decide about listing a site within two weeks after submission. AFAIK, there is currently only a deadline of six months on inactivity.
Feedback. If a site gets rejected or accepted, the editor should inform the submitter.
Complaints. The possibility of filing a complaint about a certain editor should be made more obvious on the submission form.
Perhaps: Pairing. Two editors per site. The primary one needs to be specialist in that category, the secondary editor doesn't know jack. Why would this be good? Look at this (not so) theoretical example: category Business Serices - Translations. The current editor is a freelance translator who knows a lot about translating. Unfortunately, she is biased against big translation companies because working for them seemed like living hell to her. Plus, they didn't let her translate the 5th Harry Potter. So she is reluctant to list sites that belong to those big ones. This bias can be easily detected, dealt with or reported by the secondary editor.
1) A supervisor of volunteer workers will strive to control quality, if s/he is a good supervisor, but NOT quantity. The reason is that *any* amount of quality work is better than *no* quality work, so you're never going to see a person volunteering a small amount of time being fired, disciplined, or chastised for not volunteering more. This is why I asked if you've ever volunteered for anything in real life. It doesn't work that way. You will never see an hours per week requirement, an edits per week requirement, an edit-the-unreviewed-queue requirement, or a speed of processing submissions requirement at the ODP, because an editor who provides five good edits a month is still helping the project to grow, and if he left, the project would lose his work without gaining anything in return.
2) No one has any right to free work from other people. Sometimes you CAN get things for free--a free link from a directory, a free meal at your favorite restaurant, a free upgrade to first class on your plane fare--but these things are not your *right*, and you can't sue anyone to make them happen, no matter how much you may want to.
3) If you do get something for free, going ballistic about the amount of time it takes to get done is unrealistic. By definition, volunteers are working during their free time, so regardless of whether they're a church worker or a self-interested poodle-washer, you can't force them to hurry up and serve you first.
4) Having both volunteered and managed other volunteers in a number of different settings, I can tell you from my own observations that acting presumptuous and demanding, insisting the volunteers *must* do what you tell them to or must work faster or harder, and trying to impose spurious rules on them from outside does not cause them to serve you better. Human nature being what it is, it usually causes them to serve you worse. Take from that what you will. No one likes to be treated like a servant, and volunteers don't actually *have* to be doing anything at all, so they often have lower thresholds than people who are actually being paid to smile while putting up with jerks.
If you want to debate whether depending on volunteer work is the best way to run an Internet directory, that's an interesting question. (I can tell you for a fact that volunteer work makes brick-and-mortar libraries run.) However, coming at the issue without understanding what volunteer workers ARE is just doomed to failure from the get-go.
>>Take away 99 of those people, and you'll have taken away, um, 1% of that problem.<<
And I would agree with that if you had one editor. I do see your point, I just don’t agree with your theory. This is why, and I don’t know if you are in the US or not, but, the Constitution was written very vague, just as you are saying the governing laws are for the editors are, but as time went on from the original ratification of the Constitution, new laws have been added as problems arose. On top of that, each state has added their own laws, but all these laws are very public and viewable by all. I see it as missing the 2 latter points. While I may travel from state to state and have different laws to obey, they are basically the same in each state and the Federal Government sets the basic laws. Of course each county and municipal also have laws, but once again, they are pretty much the same but more importantly, very public. Anyone caught being corrupt in the government is dealt with harshly and so are the people they are dealing with in an attempt to stem such abuses. I just don’t see this happening at the directories in my space anyway, and apparently I am not the only one.
A good example of how perhaps it should work is like WW. Each forum has it’s own charter. It is very public. Maybe each cat should have it’s own charter? This may cut down on the editor’s workloads and make it really clear when there is a problem. And the PR would be great for DMOZ.
>>as a WEBMASTER is unethical and is grounds for loss of editing privileges.<<
Not my point at all. My point is the potential for abuse for a commercial reason is too high and no consistent system in place to stop any abuse that may or may not happen.
>>As for the poor guy who was the 50,000th Viagra shop<<
I agree that there are some spaces that are over populated. And weeding out the good ones from the bad ones would be at least a real challenge, but I am not talking about spaces with 50,000 web sites, I am talking about a space with a lot fewer than 500. Which, in my opinion, becomes a whole other ballgame. And since I do not do web design for food, I believe that your example of ‘web designer’ is not much different that your example for ‘Viagra’. It’s my perception that everyone and the siblings, (formally known as everyone and their brother), does web design these days.
>>Podunk, New Jersey<<
But if you list any in New York, New York, that were NOT unique, then I feel it is only fair to also list the ones in Podunk, New Jersey. Otherwise it is inconsistent. In my case, I don’t even get the courtesy of an email explaining why it was not listed. Don’t you think this is a RED FLAG or at least inconsistent?
rfgdxm1
>>Google gives almost all the clones PR0 for dup content<<
Maybe I missed something, and that is possible, it would not be the first time, but I was not talking about PR0, that is a G thing, nor about duplicate sites. I am talking about unique pages within the same domain with different page names and content. So you get those sub-listings in G on the first page of the results and your site, domain, is 1/5 of the total number of displays on page one, which, at least it use to be anyway, where 50% of the surfers end looking for a site even if they have not found what they are looking for. The probability for a hit to one’s site in that case is much, much higher.
The reason is that *any* amount of quality work is better than *no* quality work
Not always true. No work beeing done - whether quality or not - can be unfair to people. In the case of DMOZ it is unfair to people who don't get listed because it gives listed competitors an edge over unlisted ones. But this has been stated a zillion times in this thread.
Your definition of volunteerism would apply to a volunteer streetworker giving food to homeless people: it is better to give food to ten people out of a hundred than to zero out of hundred. This is because giving food to ten people doesn't make life worser than it already is for the other 90.
BUT: The DMOZ listing competitor A but not listing competitor B makes B loose market share (because Google bases PR on DMOZ listing bla bla bla - deny it a hundred times, I know what I am talking about.)
In the end it boils down to this: No DMOZ at all is still better than a slow DMOZ.
Better stupid suggestions than no suggestions at all. My contribution to this thread was pure volunteerism.
The DMOZ listing competitor A but not listing competitor B makes B loose market share (because Google bases PR on DMOZ listing bla bla bla - deny it a hundred times, I know what I am talking about.)
Clearly not. Any company that makes any money worth talking about doesn't depend exclusively on the dmoz listing of its website for its market share and success. That's certainly not a good business model. If dmoz listed the BBC website but not CNN, would either of them notice a change in market share, traffic or revenue? I think not. If your flower shop in New York was dependent on its dmoz listing then it's probably worth considering contacting other sites for similar PR3 incoming links, advertising in your local newspaper and putting up a neon sign over the door - 'cos if you don't then you'll be going bust pretty soon...
Perhaps they meant as it relates to the results returned by a nameless search engine, and thus new business, and not as it relates to profits. To compare a major company to a Mom and Pop company I feel is a bad comparison. The small companies do not have the same resources that a larger company does.
If your business isn't able to withstand unexpected boosts to your competitors as miniscule as a single link from a PR4 DMOZ page with 50 other links on it, you're dead in the water for reasons having nothing to do with DMOZ.
[edit] I'm guilty [/edit]
I agree that a sufficiently solipsistic webmaster will never approve of the ODP, and we are content to let all such dream of its demise.
>My point is the potential for abuse for a commercial reason is too high ...
High? yes. Just look at what those sleazoid SERP perps do to Google. Just imagine what they'd do if they could sneak into the Google DB...
>But too high? too high for what, or whom? A surfer? Anyone who feels that way can, um, go see the totally non-commercial results at Looksmart instead.... Too high for Google? that would be Google's decision. Too high for an honest editor? that would be the individual editor's decision, and we have thousands of people who wouldn't agree. (The others are welcome to not edit -- the soup kitchens and libraries need volunteers too.)
We editors are more concerned about "actual abuse" than "potential abuse." That's why ....
>"...and no consistent system in place to stop any abuse that may or may not happen"
is false insofar as it isn't very odd. True, our consistent system only applies to abuses that are happening, we treat the other abuses quite differently. But are you seriously proposing as a shortcoming of the ODP that it doesn't waste time on abuses that AREN'T happening?
Sue J.Lo?
I could never do that. Sueing innocent pop stars, how dare you suggest that ... But seriously, a newspaper is about news i.e. *changes* in the real world. The DMOZ on the other hand claims to provide a "definitive and comprehensive directory of the web" (http://dmoz.org/guidelines/include.html). This is something completely different. The DMOZ is not giving information about newly created sites or sites which went down, which changed owner or which recently included new content. The DMOZ is by definition static (static doesn't mean out of date). Newspapers are dynamic. People read them and then throw them away. The DMOZ will be used over and over again. And unfortunately you can't throw it away ;-).
If the newspaper claimed to be a definitive directory of the business world, say in a particular town, I would sue the newspaper. But in that case it wouldn't be a newspaper anymore. And if the 'newspaper' articles influenced the advertisement size in that town's Yellow Pages, I would also sue the Yellow Pages.
Regarding business strategies: the business I used as the source for my examples has been around for 20 years. They are trying to *protect* their market share, not gain more. They have *lost* market share to DMOZ-listed competitors.
Actually, if J'Lo were the only pop-star in the whole world, I *would* sue her as well. Her being the *one*, she would have to be fair when doing charity visits to mom-and-pop shops. Even more so if she said "My goal is to visit every mom-and-pop shop on this planet."
The DMOZ on the other hand claims to provide a "definitive and comprehensive directory of the web" (http://dmoz.org/guidelines/include.html).
Hanu, it's quite easy to twist the sense of the guidelines if you quote only parts of a phrase. "[...] the most comprehensive and definitive directory of the Web, [...]" would be correct, and the word "most" makes the sense completely different from what you quoted. With about 4 million listings it is the most comprehensive general directory I know of. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on that.
This doesn't mean DMOZ is perfect or that things can't be improved. But it has never been one of ODP's goals to list each and every website that exists.
You are right, I did misquote the page. Sorry for that. But the resulting 'twist' as you put it, is in my favour, I think. The phrase 'most comprehensive' is an even stronger statement than just 'comprehensive'. Consequently, DMOZ claims to be the best directoy, instead of just being a good one.
I am not against the DMOZ, although the irony in my postings may suggest that. I am against the Google's dependency on a DMOZ with editing policies as they are right now.
From my admittedly narrow point of view, there are two solutions. Either Google treats DMOZ like any other link collection or editors finally cope with their responsibility.
Either Google treats DMOZ like any other link collection...
Sounds like you have a beef with Google. Nobody's under the delusion that ODP controls Google. Google controls Google. Have you started a "time to give up on Google" thread in the appropriate forum? You need to.
