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I think there is some problem in dmoz. I have seen a number of sites belongs to the same company listed in number of cat in Dmoz. And Also dmoz editors are just submitting their own sites in categories and new submission of the same cat or same industry use to avoid. Even personally i had submitted sites to dmoz those are really having good content & PR and all and did not receive any response since 3 years or so.
I believe existing editors are not following the rules and submiting their own sites and rejecting the others.
Any idea on this.
Experienced
Everything is at the whim of an editor.
No, it isn't. The guidelines are extensive and specific. It would take you a full day just to read and digest all of them. There might be a lack of supervision by the meta-editors at times, but the focus and aim of the ODP is true. You can't expect something so large, and volunteer-based, to work perfectly. Sleaze-bags sneak in, sure, and mess up some categories, but it still beats hell out of the Search Engines for finding quality sites easily.
Anyway, I hear your frustration, man. The ODP could be a lot better. But it could be worse too.
One more thing. I have a friend that has 23 clients with listings in the odp. He was wondering if he could use the update url tool to change them all to hiscompany.com/client?
If they are mirror sites, no.
If the vanity url (client.tld) redirects to, frames, or has a notice proclaiming the change of address to, the hiscompany.com/client address, yes.
NB listings are NOT updated without checking the listed site for such a redirect or a notification that the 'new' domain name is the preffered one. I suspect that the clients might not appreciate such an action though.
I'll add that if I saw a pattern of this occurring, I'd email the actual businesses asking for confirmation, but that's a personal decision, not a policy.
how often can I submit to DMOZ without annoying anyone? I've been told anywhere from every 3 weeks to every month to only once, ever.
There are other specific exceptions, the most common being that a site may be suggested in each (non-machine-translated) language the content is provided in.
One other is that a site with specific information about it's location and community interaction may be suggested in the smallest Regional level its physical presences (as defined on the site) encompass. This means more than just an address.
For example it is valid for a site for a widget manufacturer to suggest a site to Business/../Widgets or Shopping/../Widgets (but not both) and Regional/../State/Locality/TownName if the site has information about its manufacturing plant, or distribution warehouse, or interaction as an employer/sportsteam sponsor/plant history/etc. associated with the town. However when the only information on the site that is not about the product is a contact address PO box 666, TownName, State, Zip it will not be listable in Regional.
Disclaimer: looking at existing listings that may have been there for 6 years and saying 'this site does not match what you just said' is not a valid argument. What I described is the current guidelines in VERY abbreviated form. The actual guidelines can be found using a search on 'Regional Guidelines'.
Between WebmasterWorld and the-forum-that-can't-be-named there must now be several hundred threads witten in the last three years that explain every part of the ODP process, except for exactly what anti-spam measures we take. I don't see any more that can be written that could explain what we do and how we do it.
>> They give you no reason for anything that they do. Everything is at the whim of an editor. <<
No reason? Every question in this thread has had a reason given. I, alone, have typed many thousands of words. They were all meaningless?
Try writing to Microsoft, IBM, The New York Times, Wal-Mart, the owner of this forum, maybe The Red Cross, Barnardos, the Salvation Army, and anyone else you can think of. Ask them for a list of employees they sacked and the details of what they did. You think the ODP response is any different to the one you would get from them?
Dream on.
And what purpose woud it serve if they did? How would it help any site get reviewed if they did? In what way is it even related if your site is suggested to category X and the editor of category Y times out, leaves, resigns, or is fired.
>> They almost never, ever explain what websites are turned down for. <<
Well, 99.9% of the time it is "site unlistable according to what is written in the editor guidelines". If you read the guidelines, and then look at your site, you should know what it is about your site that makes it a site that we do not want to list, and will not list.
>> You don't even know IF you have been denied. <<
The only list that we do publish is of the sites that we have already listed. That list can be found, and is broken down into 650 000 categories, at [dmoz.org ]. Anything else is unproductive use of editors time.
>> An applicant for inclusion gets no information so they can dispute it if they feel the editor was wrong. <<
We tried that for over two years at the-forum-that-cannot-be-named and it became obvious that 99% of all the complainers did actually know why their site had not been listed, but just wanted to argue about it.
Classic lines were: "I submitted once", when all editors could see from the notes they had submitted hundreds of times. "I only submitted to one category", when we could see that it had been submitted to dozens of categories. "This site sells unique products, only available from us", when a quick search found a thousand other sites all selling the same stuff from the same drop-shipper. The sites were unlistable, and there was nothing the webmaster could actually do to the site to actually make it listable.
>> All that is ever said is it "would serve no useful purpose". I differ on that. <<
You can differ all you like, but we don't advise spammers how we detected their spam, and we don't give hints how they might better disguise their spam so that next time we might miss it being spam and accidentally list it.
No organization cares to admit mistakes, but few are as proactive as DMOZ at labeling each and every person who complains as an illiterate, spamming, scamming ignoramus.
illiterate, spamming, scamming ignoramus.
Atticus - isn't that from the Shakespeare play Dee Moz?
Has the dmoz community considered ways to take advantage of all the potential free labor from millions of online people?
I still don't see why you can't put on all applicants and naysayers as "probationary editors". They would help sort through the piles of submissions and then send them on to a trusted editor for final approval. Probationary editors who abused this process would be blacklisted.
I may be wrong but I'm guessing that DMOZ turns down 9 out of 10 editor applications. This seems a waste of potential resources for DMOZ and for the internet at large.
Yes, in exactly the same way that YOUR website is out of MY control. You do not account to ME for anything you do with it. You do not apologize to ME for ANY visitor who uses your information in any way whatsoever.
Now, how is the ODP different?
Um, only in this: that the ODP provides original information that some other webmasters (like Google) have found useful enough to republish.
And somehow, the fact that without accounting to you, the ODP is already creating something useful .... somehow means that the ODP must now either account to you, or forbid people to use it.
That is control freakery, pure and simple.
Um, only in this: that the ODP provides original information that some
other webmasters (like Google) have found useful enough to republish. "
Yes and that is your worst nightmare. That the google guys will discover how poorly the odp is performing and cancel out. Someday, google will realize the fault of relying on a directory that refuses to clean up it's act and it's image.
"And somehow, the fact that without accounting to you, the ODP is already
creating something useful .... somehow means that the ODP must now either
account to you, or forbid people to use it."
Why do you always use this little squib. I have seen you use it a dozen times at least. You point to one person and accuse them of being self centered and wanting the odp to become accountable to just that one person. Is it as effective as your "smack yourself in the forehead and say I am healed"? Don't denigrate me Hutch. It is beneath you and is a poor argument.
"That is control freakery, pure and simple"
See, this is the garbage you spew every time you want to NOT answer anything someone puts forth. I am not willing to let you have the last word on this and especially not when you are insulting me. Why do you editors always tag-team people in these forums. Changing the subject and ignoring any real content. I don't believe that you should be accountable to just me. But when you weild power over me and everyone else on the web, then you should be accountable to each and every one of us. I only feel arrogance in your attitude.
You are welcome to differ. You are welcome to guide your life, and select your public service, in a way that reflects your best judgments on the utility of your work.
In fact, that is what you ought to do.
Is it possible that you will ever relax your control freakery enough to accord me the same privilege?
There is nobody here but us persons. There is nobody else to be accountable to.
There is nobody here but volunteer editors, who are doing what they think is worth doing (for reasons that may well vary), .... for some reason THEY aren't persons, THEY don't have the same rights YOU have, THEY have no judgment, THEY are ... NON-PERSONS.
And ... you. THE MAN. The person. The one who has the right to tell me (the non-person, apparently) what I can or can't do, what motives I can or can't have, what I may or may not dream. I cannot choose to do anything for any reaons whatever, unless it profits YOU!
It's just persons. There isn't anything else. When you make your unsupported slanders of "mass corruption", it is persons you are accusing. When you demand extra work be done, even though it could be of no conceivable help and great potential harm to my own goals, it is me you are trying to enslave -- me and a few thousand other persons.
Don't say it's not personal. It is nothing but personal.
But ... you know, your site is absolutely worthless. It would be a whole lot more useful if you put some unique content on it. But not just any unique content -- you must devote your time wholeheartedly to doing what I want. And not just what I want, but what a few thousand other people (whom, of course, I will choose) want also.
That would be control freakery, pure and simple. If I actually did it.
Yes, and to my knowledge, at least one local magistrate has officially accepted it as such.
I took that for criticism. (My apologies if it was meant to be enthusiastic praise.) I thought you were proposing that I shouldn't be allowed to look at a website and not list it in the ODP unless I first contacted the webmaster and entered into a dispute with him, and continued that dispute until he was fully convinced that listing his site would not be in accordance with his own self interest (I'm not sure what else you could have meant by "accountability")
But if you do not expect me or other volunteers to do that, if you'll allow us to continue to review any sites without any obligation (or "accountability") to the webmaster, and to continue to list sites that we think fulfil the ODP criteria of unique content, without any obligation (or "accountability") to the webmaster, then I'd be delighted to scratch you off my list of "control freaks to avoid."
Of course. You must change it immediately. And if you don't, then that cancer will get you any minute.
Worthless to me, that is. And if worthless to me, than nobody else should be able to use it.
Isn't that the way your mind works?
[edited by: hutcheson at 3:33 am (utc) on July 3, 2005]
However, any public criticism is strictly verboten!
Very interesting...
