DMOZ problem

Waiting for Godot - or 'what to do?'

[Josefu]

I have to say that I totally agree with Directories who 'hand-judge' sites for directory inclusion, and I am for the effort that DMOZ puts into doing the above as a whole, but to be honest I don't get their volonteer system and I really don't see any fathomable future in it.

I have a site waiting there since four months (at least) already, I once a couple of those ago tried contacting my submission category's 'guru' to see what was up as there have been no additions since a couple more of those, and a couple weeks ago I went back to see a 'volonteer needed for this category' footer. This means that there will be no submissions until a new volonteer appears? If ever?

I would like to volonteer, but frankly, I can't. Not for that category, anyways (my Kanji comprehension is limited) and the wife isn't 'webmasterly' qualified. Not to mention the risk of my being biased in judging other sites (possible competitors) in my category as well as unfairly (in my mind) submitting my own site... So what do I do? Wait for someone to volonteer? Risk being sent to the end of the line by re-submitting my site?

I can't rap a free listing, but still, DMOZ has been for quite a while and quite long enough to a) have a great reputation and b) have come up with a system where they can finance at least their own existence. Google holds them in high regard for their choice of 'quality' sites - this counts for nothing financially? I have to say that I don't understand a) the goal of the directory and b) why they shouldn't collect in some way for the services they provide. Google pulls in indirectly because of its popularity, couldn't DMOZ do the same so it could pay people to do a serious and full-time job to do - whatever it set out to do in the first place? Perhaps there are some elements that I am unaware of.

[choster]

This means that there will be no submissions until a new volonteer appears?

Any editors listed in any of the higher-level categories can edit there, as well as staff members and senior editors who have "editall" access.

That said, the directory is understaffed relative to the incredible volume of listing requests received. This is manifested in two archetypical scenarios: some categories, such as for adult sites or e-tailers, are simply swamped with volume, and despite a dozen diligent editors wading through hundreds of submissions a day, the backlog increases steadily. In other cases, the categories lack a sufficient volume of knowledgeable and/or interested editors even if they have a low volume of submissions. If no one feels comfortable editing a category for the Leda programming language, the lone submission to that category can linger for months or even years.

a) the goal of the directory

The goal of the directory is to creative a definitive general purpose directory of websites, to be "the largest, most comprehensive human-edited directory of the Web." But that is not usually the goal of individual webmasters who are seeking a listing in the directory, sometimes leading to conflict. I as an editor am likely to say "well, we have a thousand bookstores, but only ten foreign policy journals." So instead of working on the 1000 pending bookstore submissions, I'll add the one journal submission and spend the rest of my editing day on search engines, think tank and university department link pages, and the like seeing if I can't find another one or two journals worth listing on my own, without being suggested from the public. This will make the international relations graduate student happy, but over time it will also drive the waiting bookstore webmasters insane with rage and frustration.

b) why they shouldn't collect in some way for the services they provide

Although webmasters and SEOs tend to view ODP as a marketing tool, editors strive to make it a reference source. This is a little bit ivory tower, granted, but that's also how the directory has gotten to its position. If it were too closely tied to advertisers or for that matter to its parent (AOL), no editor would have volunteered, and it never would have been licensed by past competitors, Lycos and AltaVista in the olden days, Google today. The directory's social contract can be found at dmoz.org/socialcontract.html .

The points you brought up are reasonable ones, and have been debated extensively at WebmasterWorld for years and years-- and there are members quite stubborn in their undying love of or hatred for ODP. But the answer always comes down to the need to have more qualified editors doing their part to maintain and expanded their interests among the hundreds of thousands of subjects the ODP attempts to catalog. Have you considered applying for some other category which meets your fancy, if you would not feel comfortable editing where your own site would be listed?

[Josefu]

Thanks for your very informative reply.

I see the gist of it all now. I'm still a fledgling webmaster so I preferred to ask questions until I was better informed, but for my reasons for wanting to be listed at DMOZ I guess I share the same goal as many another more experienced than I : To get better listings in Google. At least that's why I went there in the first place. If I had twenty sites to take care of with clients on my back wondering why their competitors come up higher for exactly the same search term, I'd be frustrated too.

For sure it is nice to have sites on a certain topic all grouped and for a denser and more informative browsing experience without having to sort reams of SE trash... but still, after later visits (more and more actually, if I have a particular search I look there first before 'Googling'), there's a hell of a lot of holes between subjects and many of my searches comes up blank or in downright odd places - a search for 'kerosene stove' brings up 'the stove collector' - in the 'collectors - food and drink related' category. Not quite. I would love to know where to find a certain category - but we cannot do a search for a category alone, and once we find a corresponding site there is no (albeit a rather vague sur-listing in the search results) indication of what category the page, once there, resides in.

I still think the system needs to be re-thought out. There is no possible way to precisely categorize everything : the dewey decimel system resulted from a situation like that : ) And to, at the same time, find a 'specialist' volonteer staffer for each and every category? In one word, 'Eeek.'

For now I'm persuaded that only an idea of a marriage between SE and Directory techniques can result in anything managable. I'm sure that in the SE results that there are and have been sites coming up that have since long been deemed of quality - by links, traffic or content - since years. If there were some way to detect and gauge this - starting with the length of time that a certain site has been in the SE database, for example - couldn't sites like these be - automatically? - submitted to a category, if there wasn't already one ready for it, made by the - keywords used to find the site? By looking at my own site logs I know that Google (for starters) has access to all of the above information. What's more, robots could crawl (monitor) the directory sites to make sure that they're still there and/or changed. Only 'new' sites would need to be submitted and judged in the immidiate, and those automatically added could be judged at a more eventual rate, call it a sort of 'purification' if you like. Perhaps this tacked onto (integrated into) the present system would a) lighten the load of the staffers b) make a more coherent, complete, and ever-evolving/growing category listing sytem.

In any case, I personally would love to do a 'topic search' which would turn up a list of available topics - I choose the one of my choice (the closest match?) and browse away. It would even be fun come to think of it ("today, I'll learn..."). Should I be selling all this? : P LOL.

Just a few more cents : )

Josefu

[Josefu]

Oh, btw, I am seriously thinking of becoming an editor for the Photography or Typography categories, the coming weeks will tell how much time the future will leave me. Thanks for the thought : )

[hutcheson]

>There is no possible way to precisely categorize everything : the dewey decimel system resulted from a situation like that :)
Yes, the Library of Congress, DDC, and ODP taxonomies are all about the same size: hundreds of thousands of defined categories, and lots of "templates" defining an almost infinite number of potential categories.

>And to, at the same time, find a 'specialist' volonteer staffer for each and every category? In one word, 'Eeek.'
Yes, indeed: although many categories don't need a specialist--the Podunk,_New_Jersey editor can handle both its Business and Society subcategories.

>For now I'm persuaded that only an idea of a marriage between SE and Directory techniques can result in anything managable.
Very likely. You might find "search" within the Google directory tab one of the most advanced steps in that direction currently available.

[Josefu]

Thanks for your reply, for reassuring me that I'm not only being wistful.

I have a 'full-time' contract in negociation, if it doesn't go through no news for me but good news for DMOZ - if I meet your qualifications : )