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Asking around, I was pretty stunned by some of the other editors and old pro's here when they told me this was now the standard MO for alot of tight categories.
Is this what the ODP has come too?
Have you ever:
- offered cash to edit or include a listing?
- offered cash and thtey accepted to edit a listing?
- as an editor been offered cash to edit a listing?
- taken cash to edit a listing?
[edited by: Brett_Tabke at 4:50 pm (utc) on June 23, 2004]
webmasters are not users
Also, I have NEVER EVER, seen one single complaint about DMOZ from its users about a site that is not listed(webmasters are not users).
Fair enough. Webmasters are not users. So don't be surprised when they laugh it up and don't bother telling anyone when corrupt editors come 'round begging for bribes.
[edited by: blaze at 9:50 am (utc) on June 24, 2004]
And what are webmasters, according to you?
"Webmasters" here means the people that create, manage or maintain websites.
DMOZ was not designed for webmasters.
So don't whine when they laugh it up and don't bother telling anyone when corrupt editors come 'round begging for bribes.
This thread is at risk of becoming one long Chinese Whisper.
Can we have the surrounding facts please Brett?
If you walk into a cesspool and it comes up to your ankles, you can live with it until you get to the end; but, once it is up to your chin, it is pretty hard to deny.
(note, leave the personal stuff at the server door. Just because we are all passionate about the topic, does not give anyone the right to flame or degrade others.)
I'm an ODP editor, and I agree with this. (Well, except for the insult at the end.) One link from a PR3 page, or even a link from a PR5 page with 300 other links on it already, couldn't *possibly* be of much value from an SEO perspective. I think there are times when an ODP listing can really give a site exposure, but most of those times involve a topic users actually browse about (usually informational categories or strongly defined niche commercial ones, from my experience as a frequent directory user; very rarely a highly competitive one with hundreds of listings in it) or a topic on which there is a tremendous amount of useless spam and relatively little good content (an ODP listing may elevate the Google rankings of a site which is actually about an author over the many empty "quotes by author so-and-so" fluff pages, but very rarely affects the Google rankings of an ebusiness at all, from what I've seen). Oh, or it can majorly increase the exposure of a site which has done nothing to promote itself at all and doesn't have any other important inbound links yet. I don't think any of these scenarios really apply to the kind of webmasters who hire SEO's and/or read sites like WebmasterWorld, much less those who would consider paying anyone for a link (illictly or otherwise).
I think the ODP is a great resource, but I think the importance and cash value of a listing there to any individual site is very highly overrated by a lot of people, which is probably the underlying cause of the bribery/extortion issue. Frankly, if an editor is accepting or demanding a bribe from you, not only is he or she breaking our rules, he's also ripping you off. IMHO.
IMHO, the value of a DMOZ listing is not all that great for search engine rankings, so if I was to keep my competitors out, then its not actually achieving much, if anythng.
In the time I spend editing, and not working on my site, my competitors can spend that same amount of time getting links for their sites....so I guess i am at a disadvantge being an editor :-( and should not have even listed them :-)
All in all, whats the fuss about?
But the simple fact is, editors should be paid for their work. The most rediculous idea on the Internet had to be DMOZ - sacrifice thousands of hours for the nothing? I'm sorry, but I don't see sane people jumping at that.
What a sad statement that completely overlooks the joy of feeling one's efforts can make a difference.
I became an editor because my area of interest is one so overburdened with spam and affiliates that consumers have/had nary a prayer of finding anything remotely considered 'unique content.' SEO techniques that use directory-style navigation spamming every city name, deceptive, misleading text and claims...I could go on...
And like many other editors, I really don't have the time, but I find it because it's important to me that cool little sites don't get completely lost in the search engine sea of 'optimization.'
I'm sure this sounds quite naive, yet in the giving of time and thought, I've learned far more than can ever be repaid. I call that 'something.'
Anyway, my own site was submitted some time ago to a catagory with only 8 entries and no editor, so who knows, maybe in a couple years they will accept an editor and I'll get a review...
I used to edit at DMOZ. One day it hit me. "I'm doing this for free." I have kids, who are more important than DMOZ. I have relatives I don't like, but they are still more important than DMOZ. There are homeless people in Seattle who need food and clothes, and that's more important than DMOZ. I have coffee in my coffee maker that's more important than DMOZ. Morally, it's like impossible to justify spending time volunteering at DMOZ.
Wow. Don't you ever watch TV; play a computer game; lay around the house doing nothing? You must be a very driven person, to criticize other people as immoral for having leisure activities...
I agree with FlwrLdy that directory editing is a useful task, but primarily I do it because I think it's fun. I'm a librarian at heart, and I like putting things into order and surveying them with satisfaction. I enjoy other things people might find boring too, like esoteric literature and C64 abandonware and painting my toenails. None of these things harms anyone, nor would they be any more fun if I was paid. In fact, they'd probably be a lot less fun if I was paid, since I'd then be obliged to do them at times when I had other things I'd rather be doing.
There are a LOT of categories at the ODP which are so limited in scope that an editor could easily handle them with at most one hour a month. Including checking all sites in unreviewed, making sure all listed sites still work, and search Google, etc. for possible new sites relevant to the cat.
I tried for a year to get in, writing to 3 different editors. And when I finally got my site in, it was the only one in that category that has the URL as the link text while the rest of them has their company's name. Strange!
I know for sure that if I were to request the editor to change it to my company's name, it will be removed from the category and place into some waiting list.
Anyway, it has it advantage in the sense that it stands out like a sore thumb.
Why are you so sure? Do you think it was done intentionally? Couldn't it be some genuine mistake?
If you know your site is against the ODP guidelines but is listed anyway, then I suppose you're right not to want to call attention to it, as an editor may notice this and delete it; but otherwise an update request isn't going to harm you. It will just sit there until an editor considers the request. It doesn't unreview your site in the meantime or anything like that.
Hope that helps. (-:
Intentional or not, it is not for me to investigate, it is the job of the metas. It is a genuine mistake for sure. Editors tends to list a site (in this case by domain name) after careful review.
It is a PR0 category page and I get about 1 visitor every one to two months from it. It is OK to let it remains status quo.
Thanks for the info, flicker.
Why think this? The way the ODP update function works, *anyone* could submit an update. How could the editor know it was you doing this, or perhaps a competitor trying to hose your ODP listing? Because of the latter possibility, if the editor disagrees with an update request the proper way to handle it would just be leave the site listed as is.
Oh, by the way, one category higher up from where my site was stands a 'quality' <snack>
[edited by: Brett_Tabke at 6:47 pm (utc) on June 29, 2004]
[edit reason] no specifics please [/edit]
If you have a look at WebmasterWorld tos you will see that the use of specific examples is discouraged.
The example you gave (yes, its not difficult to find it and it's blatant) is typical of an editor riding shotgun over their own site.
This is a very different thing to a meta soliciting bribes for inclusion.
If you stick to proper evidenced complaints about your problem editor, they will eventually get removed. It may take a few complaints some months apart if nothing happens
However that is easier to achieve than to remove a meta on the make. The DMOZ system of self policing means that that is considerably more difficult.
We have never heard if BT's problem meta is still there?
Anyway, that particular site was noticed just through some casual browsing yesterday. If I don't remember wrongly, the last time that I went through it, there are also double listings, sites mistakenly placed higher in category, etc.
I sure most of editors are doing their best to provide the best user experience but sadly there are black sheeps in there.
Where did Brett post this was a meta?
He originally said so in his first post, but later he edited it out and replaced "a meta editor" and "the meta" with just "editor." I assume he was mistaken about that, or else the editor was lying to him about it.
I'd be curious to hear the whole story too, but if it is being taken care of via the proper channels it is probably not anyone's business other than Brett's, the ODP's, and the would-be extortioners. (-:
I'll take it then that Brett edited his own post to remove the reference to a meta as indicating that he is unsure that this was in fact so.
>I'd be curious to hear the whole story too, but if it is being taken care of via the proper channels it is probably not anyone's business other than Brett's, the ODP's, and the would-be extortioners. (-:
I am curious also. In particular, how Brett was able to verify that the person soliciting bribes was indeed an editor? It would be very easy for a scam artist to go around falsely claiming to be a editor looking for suckers who would foolishly pay him. As W.C. Fields once said, it is morally wrong to let a sucker keep their money. ;)
It's even more complex than that. Let's assume a hypothetical corrupt ODP editor. Assume someone e-mails them out of the blue, or phones them while they are gently simmering in the bathtub on a Saturday morning. The problem for this hypothetical corrupt editor: how does he know if the person contact them is:
#1) A webmaster genuinely offering a bribe to give his site preferential treatment; or #2) someone honest who has caught wind that he is corrupt, and is doing a loyalty test on them? Since this is coming out of the blue, it would be near impossible to determine that the case is #1 above. Even a corrupt editor likely in this scenario to just report the incident to staff. Because if it is #2 above, if they do anything less they are risking being booted by the ODP.
Wherever (this means everywhere) there is quick money to be made by bending rules there is human nature and all its limitations waiting for an easy hand out...
ODP is not different...some of the hyper-competitive areas would certainly see some corruption...no way to avoid this...
Brick and mortar / Internet Corruption same source - People
sad...
Interesting. I wonder if they got their money's worth? Problem with that strategy is that the only people who would pay a marketing firm that had corrupt ODP editors on the payroll would be e-commerce webmasters in competitive areas. Which means that the competition likely would be searching for improper ODP listings of competitor's sites. And of course wouldn't hesitate the blow the whistle.
