Forum Moderators: open
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]
I'd really like to get into the category.
Any advice on what to do? Should I report it or just play the game.
Thanks
Freedom
Did I complain to ODP? Of course not, I will just be removed and put back in an endless queue. After all, if I dont like what these unpaid volunteers are doing out of the goodness of their own (unpaid) hearts, do I have any right to complain? I am happy I got in anywhere.
Of course we all know (at least all of us that dont slave for no pay at DMOZ) that a listing in DMOZ is valuable. Google copies the listing - how can any sane person say that a listing in google's directory will not affect your search results? But of course every (unpaid) DMOZ editor will say you are nuts for thinking their is any monitary or SEO value to DMOZ. They will all also tell you that you get what you pay for and you dont pay anything so dont complain, because after all, we are all unpaid volunteers.
All sarcasm aside, DMOZ could clearly use some basic improvements. One obvious improvement would be instituting some rules about conflict of interest - really simple ones like: you cant be an editor of a category that you are listed in. (does anyone really need to be convinced that this is a good idea?)
It would be nice if the DMOZ editors could recognize that webmasters are not their enemy, they are their content suppliers and they are also their end user.
Maybe among people whose other "good" ideas include putting their tongues on a frozen lamp post.
Does anyone really need to be convinced that people who know something about a topic might tend to make good editors for a topic?
And your point of view pretty much explains why most of the ODP commercial directories are editted by commercial site owners. And why if you are one of their competitors your chances of getting in are slim. Not really because there is too much work for the unpaid editors to perform, but because the editor is your competitor.
One practical problem with that idea: precisely *how* is the ODP supposed to enforce this? It isn't like the ODP has the budget to hire a private eye firm to do a full background check on all editors. Anyone who was trying to become an ODP editor for the sole purpose of giving their own sites preferential treatment would surely lie about their affiliations if such a new policy was implemented. The only effective check against dishonest editors is reviewing their editing history for evidence of bias.
Sure about that? I have no idea what the answer is. However, I wouldn't be surprised that a lot of commercial submissions end up getting reviewed by editalls and metas. Particularly outside of Regional.
Why, yes. I'd need to be convinced. I'm an editall (that is, an editor of EVERY category.) I also scan books and create e-texts previously unavailable on the net, and donate them to various library archive sites. And am I convinced that people like me shouldn't be allowed ANY listings in the ODP, simply because we donate significant amounts of unique content to the public domain? That idea isn't good, it isn't even merely bad. It is downright perverse.
>It would be nice if the DMOZ editors could recognize that webmasters are not their enemy, they are their content suppliers and they are also their end user.
The reality is that webmasters are not in any sense ODP end-users or customers. Our end users are surfers looking for other people's sites: "webmasters looking for their own sites" is merely a kind of tolerably expensive abuse.
The reality is that "webmasters" as a class are not content suppliers, any more than "Russians" or "gray-eyed people". (ODP editors as a class ARE content suppliers, and we know how to recognize content suppliers!)
The reality is that many webmasters are not just editors' "enemies", they are malicious oppressors and vicious sabotagers of what we build. And some have nothing to do with us (although we wish some of them would). And many are very very very slightly helpful. And once in a great while we come across one that's very helpful. (And we know we can use help!)
But the most important reality is that ODP editors cannot afford to deal with submitters on the basis of prejudice. How would the honest content creators among you (I am sure there are some somewhere) feel if editors lumped you with the affiliate spammers, blind lead generators, anonymous drop-shipper-fronts, mass-alias-URL-submitters, and the rest of the pond scum on the information pool? It wouldn't do us any good, it wouldn't do our customers any good, and it would even do you harm, if we did that.
So we try to ignore whether submitters are malicious or beneficient, honest or crooked, politically correct racially or religiously, or members of any other heterogenous group. And we just look at websites. We take the approach that websites just "are", like chert nodules in limestone, without worrying about where they came from. The webmaster might be dead, might have bought the content from someone else, might be a personally dispicable person -- we don't care. We just look at websites. This is a very good thing. How many of you webmasters with legitimate businesses want to be judged on your personality, or our impression of your altruism or benevolence? If you were the glad-handing personable type, you'd be out selling computers or real estate or pharmaceuticals or furniture or maybe even used cars.
So for editors to be thinking about the webmaster is perhaps not such a bad idea as the first one, but nonetheless impressively bad in its own way.
A DMOZ editor just asked me for a bribe. He wants more links to his website.
I'd really like to get into the category.Any advice on what to do? Should I report it or just play the game.
Well huchinson, your post is yet another perfect example of why DMOZ editors are so reviled. Webmasters dont create content? Who creates all those websites that are indexed in DMOZ? You and your tireless scanning of books?
And you think website owners dont also use google (which uses DMOZ) to search the web? You think website owners only use google and dmoz and every other search engine just to look for their own sites? Really? If you truly believe that then I question your ability to judge any content for DMOZ inclusion.
So you are an editall that deserves to put his own stuff up before everyone else because you do it for free? And that somehow represents the *true* state of the internet and what the end user *truly* wants, how exactly? Somehow because you work for DMOZ you think your stuff is more important or more relevant than everything else out there? Or is it really just your way of paying yourself back for your volunteer work?
Is that why all the DMOZ editors pretend that listings in DMOZ have no monetary or SEO value? To convince themselves they are not abusing their position when they list their own sites and not those of competitors?
"The reality is that webmasters are not in any sense ODP end-users or customers. Our end users are surfers looking for other people's sites: "webmasters looking for their own sites" is merely a kind of tolerably expensive abuse."
Sick.
Really?
I just cannot fathom what brain dysfunction could be responsible for this idea. Of COURSE our primary concern is the people who actually use our directory, just as Google's primary concern is the people who use its search engine and McDonald's primary concern is the people who eat its food.
How could any rational person think otherwise?
If you genuinely think there's something 'sick' about the fact that a website which does not belong to you, to which you have contributed nothing, has organized itself to benefit its own users rather than you, there is really no point having a discussion at all.
Who's asking you to advertise their websites on the 5 oclock news? No one. They are asking DMOZ to be fair about their practices. DMOZ claims they are working with their customer's best interest at heart and yet they do nothing about obviously corrupt practices by their holier than thou editors.
That would be true. That's why we try not to recognize "webmasters" as a class at all. (Perhaps this was mentioned earlier.) If a surfer wants to look for a site, we won't kick them out for engaging in webmaster activities. We won't even ask, and they don't have to tell. (I've indulged occasionally myself, if it matters.)
If a surfer wants to suggest a site, we won't ask them if they're a webmaster or if it is their site. We'll try to look at it as if it were offered for purely altruistic motives.
Webmasters don't exist for us: tunnel vision, focussed on surfers, is the watchword.
What an idiotic question. Of course SOME webmasters create content, just like SOME Russians and SOME grey-eyed people. But does that make grey-eyed people a privileged class? Of course it doesn't. Some grey-eyed people DON'T create content, just like some Russians and some webmasters.
And does that mean ALL Russians, as a class, should get special treatment at a website created for the whole world? Absolutely not!
And what would a sane person say if some Russian started denouncing ODP editors as sick or arrogant simply because they wouldn't adopt his own prejudices?
The ODP is a customer -- an avid customer -- of content creators. It is also a way of creating content, and a way of facilitating the creation of content. But we don't confuse "content creators" with "webmasters". There is no logical connection (not even disjunction!) And we don't discriminate for or against websites based on what their creators do, or don't do, the rest of the time: just like we don't discriminate against surfers based on what THEY do the rest of the time.
I don't see what's difficult about this concept, but I know in politics many people like to form "mutual-consolation self-anointed victimization groups" and tell how all the rest of the world doesn't recognize the innate nobility they gained by joining the MCSAVG. And I suppose the same thing is bound to happen on the web. "Hello, I'm John. I'm a webmaster, and everyone hates me."
But like the Farside cartoon said, "on the internet nobody knows you're a dog." If you submit content-rich websites to appropriate ODP categories, and you don't mention you're a webmaster -- then we can't possibly discriminate against you, can we? And if you just submit repetitive spam -- of the kinds of spam I enumerated earlier, or something I didn't mention -- it won't help you any to say, "I'm not a webmaster, I'm a, um, burglar. Yes, that's right, I'm collecting money for a terrorist organization." When you do that, in blatant violation of the ODP submittal policy, it's the editors you are oppressing. It is the editors you are dumping cleanup work on. It is the editors whose work you are vandalizing and sabotaging. It is the editors whom you are treating as subhuman slaves, mere tools of your greed.
And what attitude are you exhibiting when you say, "I'm a webmaster. I'm allowed to do that to you! And you have to take it. Because what you do is worthless except as far as it promotes my wealth." You're doing your dead level best to give all webmasters a bad name.
You won't succeed, because editors won't buy into your power-class games.
How can an editor do this? It's almost impossible. Brett mentioned about the only possible form to start this thread (and that risks becoming an ex-editor.) Even that is rare -- a few times a month, perhaps? and we hope to make it rarer.
How can a serp perp do this? Spamming the ODP with non-guidelines-compliant sites, knowing beforehand that they are no benefit to the ODP and a waste of time to editors, How rare is THAT? Oh, a few thousand. Daily.
But it is not just editors and surfers that are harmed by spammers. By my reckoning there would be no backlog, none, if only legitimate sites were submitted. Reviews would be quicker, sooner, less suspicious. Legitimate sites would be listed almost instantly.
So ... who's harmed most by spammers? Not editors. If we get tired of it, we can Google for websites, or even take a break and watch TV. Not surfers, there are already more sites than most people can ever read; there are already sites selling anything most people will ever want.
Hmm. Webmasters of sites with unique content. You are hurt most. You're the ones whose sites are competing less effectively. You're the ones who are losing businesses. And the spammers want to lump themselves with you, their primary victims, to dilute the calumny they would otherwise receive?
Is that sick or what?
This isn't 'arrogant,' it's the most basic of Business 101 principles. The first priority of any company or organization is its own customers. Just because the ODP is non-profit doesn't mean the same principle doesn't apply.
All your rationalization and complaining about evil webmasters demanding special privileges is just a diversion from the real issue. The real issue is not that you work for free at DMOZ and are attacked by evil webmasters at every turn and do your unbiased best to treat everyone eqaully based solely on content that would be desirable to the end user. No one is demanding special treatment. It sounds good as a diversion though.
The real issue is that DMOZ is overrun by commercial website operators that guard their directories from their competition. Pretending your directories are unbiased doesnt make them so. Giving commercial owners the ability to control who is and is not listed in directories that they are listed in is not just bad practice, it is totally stupid. It is not that you *might* get a bad apple now and then. It is that you will *only* get bad apples. A sane person would know this.
A sane person does not rely on individual discretion for a totally unsupervised volunteer position to care for something that can easily be abused for value.
Too bad for DMOZ, but not earth shattering. It is just another good idea being run into the ground by a bunch of close-minded zealots with their fingers in their ears. Nothing new here.
Oh, you hadn't asked that question yet, so you hadn't gotten my answer yet, let alone its rationale. What you proposed before was that editors not be permitted to have websites listed at all -- that is, yet another way of attempting to reduce them to subhuman status. (People can still read it, so it's kind of futile to claim you asked something else.) And obviously, I think that's a bad idea, just as bad as treating Russians or grey-eyed people like dirt.
On the new question: The ODP policy is: "an editor is allowed to list his own sites. An editor isn't allowed to show favoritism for his own sites." We enforce that. (An editor who deletes the competitor's site is not automatically expelled, but it is as certain as if it were automatic.) Obviously, we don't always find out about it immediately. We find out about it when someone (editor or surfer or even competitor) notices and tells us.
I think this is the right approach. I agree it's idealistic, and there will always be failures. I think the best way to deal with failure is through feedback from surfers. If people looking at categories tell us about these things, they usually get fixed quickly -- often within minutes.
I would also agree that there are problems with having a single person make an _important_ decision. But normally, adding a site to the ODP is not a very important decision -- how many sites that are currently in the ODP that wouldn't be missed if they had never been added? A few thousand, maybe? If there are 1000 widget manufacturers on earth, can a directory claim to be comprehensive if it only has 998? 900? 750? Definitely so, regardless of which 750 they are.
No, single decisions simply aren't that important. Even to the most interested party (the one with a financial interest) an ODP listing is more than nothing, but it is not indispensable. (You should read these forums awhile to get a better perspective from the experienced professionals.)
What is much more important is that (1) lots of decisions be made efficiently -- you'd much rather have three times as much work done, than have three people sign off on each edit action; (2) Bad positive decisions not be made -- that is, sites added that should not have been added. Nobody will miss one of the 1000 widget manufacturers. But everyone will notice if only 250 manufacturers are listed, while Yahoo has 500; everyone will notice if one of the alleged widget manufacturers is actually peddling porn.
So the important question is: how do you create a process that gets as many widget manufacturers as possible added, while keeping the non-WM's to an insignificant level?
Do you appoint a troika for each review, and cut your efficiency by two-thirds? (The ODP would be smaller than Yahoo if we did that!) Or do you just review the decisions that are apparently erroneous, and triple the number of sites you review and add?
Most webmasters who've been waiting a long time for a site review will, I think, prefer the existing approach. But there is no universal perfect solution. Zeal uses an interesting hybrid system (some ODP editors who've looked at it closely claim that in practice, their extra overhead doesn't seem to translate into improved quality or lessened editorial abuse. But nobody could have known that unless someone tried it; and your mileage may even be different.) If you think you can do better with your troika, appoint two other commissars and have at it! So long as different directories use different approaches, surfers have a choice. And I think that's a good thing.
The fact is, most edits in commercial areas are done by high-level editors who aren't competing in any of the categories they edit. So there isn't one editor that makes final decisions in a category; there are hundreds of editors that share decision-making power in that category (even though only one of them may make any particular decision, there's no way of predicting which one that will be.) So your concept of a "single competitor" blocking all comers simply doesn't apply to the ODP at all. There is never a single category with only one editor. There are always hundreds of potential editors, and usually dozens of actual editors.
The fact is, there are lots of categories and lots of spam. I worked for hours in one category recently, processing over 100 sites, nearly all of them in strict order. Not a single one of them ended up being listed in that category, not one! Most were moved to other categories to be reviewed, some were deleted as duplicates or spam. And that was not at all a bad spam magnet. In most retail categories, the spam is much worse.
This has three effects: (1) editors waste a lot of time figuring out which sites are spam, (2) a lot of that time is wasted on sites which will never be listed, (3) because of the amount of spam and deceptiveness of spammers, editors can be very reluctant to list a site even if they haven't detected its spamminess (because we know it's still very likely spam, we're afraid it's probably very sneaky spam.) All of these effects impact editors only as much as they are willing to tolerate; but they impact webmasters of legitimate sites without their permission.
These are simple facts, and anyone with any significant editing experience will tell you the same thing. If someone is telling you differently, ask them how many thousand edits they've done in Shopping categories. And don't believe them if they give you a number larger than zero.
I really don't think you thought about that before writing it. You just accused every editor....
This is a common misperception. It is *impossible* for a single ODP editor to 'guard' a category or force a competitor's submission to stay in unreviewed. I'm not saying "Oh, we're unbiased so it doesn't happen"; I'm saying that the way our system is set up, an editor is incapable of doing this. It's impossible for one editor to block a submission from being reviewed. If he doesn't do it himself, there is always a backup system of other editors capable of doing it, and it will eventually get done.
Now, it *is* possible for an editor to go around *deleting* competitor's sites, but this is much more noticeable and as Hutcheson says, quickly corrected when it is brought to our attention.
thinks that editors of DMOZ should get special treatment over the rest of the websites on the internet for being listed in DMOZ
huh? Why should't they get special treatment - they volunteer their time. The fact is they don't get special treatment - I have seen many messages from editors commenting (not complaining) that a site they submitted to a category that they have no editing privleges in has not yet been listed after 3, 6 or 12 or whatever months....thats not being treated favourably.
When I was first accepted as an editor, the first thing I did was add my own site. The second thing I did was add all my competitors sites - NONE of them were even submitted! - the category is now a "complete" resource of ALL the key sites for that topic.
I do not see DMOZ listing giving any great or special search engine ranking boost, so as an editor, what do I actually have to gain by keeping competitors out and giving my site preferential treatment? What is all the fuss about?
I consider DMOZ overrun by corporate competitors because the directory editors listed on many of the pages (who presumably have the most input in those directories) are competitors with sites listed in those directories. Can other editors edit those directories? Obviously. Does that mean the competitor listed as the editor for a directory doesnt have influence over that directory? I dont think so.
Hutchinson, go reread my post. You are the one that said editalls should be barred from posting anywhere. I did not say that. What I suggested was editors not be allowed to list their own site to *directories that they manage*. There is a difference. I notice you like to use distractions to make your point. This is another one.
Editalls could still have their sites listed. They have two choices. One, stop managing the directory you want to add your own site to, or two, submit your site like everyone else and let one of the countless other editors/editalls handle your request. Pretty simple. No conflict of interest and no penalty for the unpaid volunteers. Simple to implement too. It could even be done on the honor system that you so heavily rely on now.
What I have heard several times now here and on other forums is that DMOZ editors became editors for the purpose of adding their own sites to DMOZ. Doesnt that ring a little bell of concern in your heads?
Right now, DMOZ is setup so that guarding your directory from competitors is pretty easy. First, you add your own site and then just dont add anything more, or just add a non-competing site once in a while. Leave all the competitors in the queue indefinitely or ship them to some other directory to await review there. Since no one is checking, and editors arent required to do a minimum of work, how does this not happen? The roving editalls have their eye on every nook and cranny?
The same goes with a system open to abuse. Eventually your system will be abused. All I am suggesting is add a few simple safeguards to prevent that abuse.
Defending bad practice with: there is no money or we are all volunteers or we are all honest, is no excuse for bad practice.
I do understand what you're trying to get at here, but don't see any way in which it would benefit us. You see, our goal is to list EVERY quality website in our directory. Therefore, EVERY time an editor adds a quality site, it's a good thing for us. We don't care who owns it.
Now, if an editor adds a NON-quality site simply because it belongs to him or a friend of his or somebody who has bribed him, that's a big problem, and we have a lot of measures to check for that, and respond quickly when such problems are brought to our attention. Or if an editor deletes a quality site belonging to one of his competitors or ex-girlfriends or someone who didn't respond to an extortion attempr, that's a big problem, and we have a lot of measures to check for that too, and respond quickly when such problems are brought to our attention.
But if an editor adds a quality site that belongs to him, then you see, this BENEFITS our directory, not harms it.
All of our fairness concepts have to do with what improves our directory and benefits our users. Having the most possible quality sites listed is the goal. Editors who abuse their position to promote crap sites, delete competitors, or mess with titles and descriptions to give their own listings some sort of prominence are diminishing our directory and taking advantage of our users, and we hates them forever, oh yes. But an editor who adds a quality content site belonging to himself has just enriched our directory by one, in a way that gives our users one more choice, without detracting from any of the others. Hooray!
You're still looking at this from the point of view of what would be fairest and best for the OWNERS OF WEBSITES WE LINK TO. When you start thinking about it from the point of view of what would be fairest and best for the PEOPLE WHO USE OUR DIRECTORY, our guidelines will start to make a lot more sense. There are millions of sites out there to be added to our directory. It doesn't really matter to us or to our users whether your individual site is the very next one added or the three millionth site from now, as long as we have the same number of great new sites added by tomorrow morning.
Yes, that would be "doing the job of an editor." And it is a privilege. The responsibility attached to that is "you must not treat your own sites unfairly".
What does that mean in practice?
You can probably find an old thread in this forum where I was arguing against someone's assertion that a certain site was over-deeplinked in the ODP. One of his arguments was that another site wasn't so deeplinked even though better content was available for it in one, randomly selected case. What he didn't know was that I had prepared the material on the second site for publication. And there are still dozens of extremely valuable deeplinks there, including that one, waiting for a listing.
One of those deeplinks is listed, though. I was out surfing the net when I ran across an e-text on a subject in which I had some interest. I went to that category and listed the e-text. And while I was in the neighborhood I listed a site submitted there, as well as the deeplink I knew about because I'd helped publish it. The e-text I found was the longest. The submitted site was the newest. The material I prepared was the most authoritative.
Another time I published an e-text, and went to look for a place to list it. It turned out that a very similar e-text was already listed in an unrelated category. I double-listed the other text and single-listed my own, to form the core of a new category. The double-listing was appropriate because it was of the form "John Doe writes about Richard Roe" where Doe and Roe were both important enough to have literature categories of their own.
Is abuse possible? Yes. But -- what privilege cannot be abused for private benefit? None. Does the ODP have a rule against abusing this? Yes. Is it enforced? Yes. Do we catch everyone? No. Do more people telling us about problems help us catch more abusers? Yes.
Do we need more help finding abusers? Yes. Do we have multiple ways for people to help? Yes. Can anybody help? Yes.
>I consider DMOZ overrun by corporate competitors because the directory editors listed on many of the pages (who presumably have the most input in those directories) are competitors with sites listed in those directories.
That is your opinion. What evidence do you have of it? You haven't said. If you had evidence, and it mattered at all to you, what would you do? Give the evidence to ODP abuse investigators. So long as you don't show actual evidence of a systemic problem, all you are doing is committing character genocide.
>Does that mean the competitor listed as the editor for a directory doesnt have influence over that directory? I dont think so.
Re-read flicker's post, which you have obviously not yet understood. No editor can "influence" what sites are NOT listed by leaving them unreviewed, because any of the other hundreds of editors can review those sites at any time. An editor can only "influence" by "acting" -- that is, either listing sites or rejecting submittals. And rejecting competitors's submittals is grounds for immediate termination as an editor. Because that necessarily harms the directory. Listing your own site, the action you so badly want to forbid, HAS NO LOGICAL CONNECTION WITH HARMING THE DIRECTORY! You're still intent on running a personal vendetta, and you haven't grasped the concept that the ODP guidelines must be aimed at protecting the directory from harm and encouraging people to help, not at keeping people from doing what isn't your highest priority.
>What I suggested was editors not be allowed to list their own site to *directories that they manage*.
Yes.
>There is a difference.
That is another fantasy of yours. The fact is, there is no difference. I have managed both kinds of category, and I know.
If you want to make proposals about changing the ODP, they need to be based on what really happens rather than your paranoid delusions.
>What I have heard several times now here and on other forums is that DMOZ editors became editors for the purpose of adding their own sites to DMOZ. Doesnt that ring a little bell of concern in your heads?
Again, there are levels of delusion here. Ulterior motives of editors is obviously a major concern; otherwise we wouldn't bother with the multiple ways for both editors and surfers to report abuse. And your assertion that while nobody else's rules can stop abuse, your rule can stop it just by existing -- is again fantastic to the point of clinical paranoia. The simple fact is, an editor with two brain cells and an ulterior motive could attempt to escape your proposed rule by merely lying about which sites are his. And the simple fact is, most abusers already do this, so the abusers wouldn't even have to change their behavior in the presence of this new rule. Under your regime, we would still have to implement checks and feedback. (Wait a minute! We've already done that! Duh.)
>Right now, DMOZ is setup so that guarding your directory from competitors is pretty easy. First, you add your own site and then just dont add anything more, or just add a non-competing site once in a while. Leave all the competitors in the queue indefinitely or ship them to some other directory to await review there.
Even as we speak, I'm implementing your proposal to guard the directory from, um, French sites. That's right, I'm protecting all the world from those nasty chauvinistic foreigners who don't even speak English. All I have to do is leave their sites in reviewed, or ship them off to some other category. And furthermore, there are thousands of us editors doing exactly the same thing! And you know what? French sites keep getting listed. By your theory I'm letting too many French sites in because I'm editing too much. Maybe I should edit less, yes, that's the ticket: influence the directory more by editing less! Or ... maybe reality is otherwise?
>Since no one is checking, and editors arent required to do a minimum of work, how does this not happen?
It happens. It just doesn't work.
>[platitudes and irrelevant analogies omitted..[ Eventually your system will be abused.
What do you mean, eventually? It has already happened. It happens daily.
>All I am suggesting is add a few simple safeguards to prevent that abuse.
Nothing you have suggested would change abusers' practice in the least. Nothing you have suggested would make it the least bit easier to detect abuse. What you suggest would only hassle honest editors.
>Defending bad practice with: there is no money or we are all volunteers or we are all honest, is no excuse for bad practice.
That's why we'd never do such a thing. Instead, we ask people to report bad practices. But you haven't done that even once! Is it that you really don't know about any bad practices -- and all your safeguards are just based on your own nightmarish fantasies -- or is it that you really know about some bad practices, and are concealing them -- giving irrefutable proof of your bad faith?
You don't have to answer that. Under either alternative, you're not someone we want influencing the ODP. And there are no other alternatives. So in practical terms, it doesn't really matter.
