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Over a 2 months ago I submitted to DMOZ, trying to add my fiance's wedding invitation web site to the directory. The category is ultra small. Has she been addded? NO. Why? There is no reason for her not to be added. She sells custom wedding invitations and belongs in this category. After about a month, I sent 2 emails to each of the categories editors. Nothing. If these so called editors are not doing their jobs then remove them. For DMOZ to have such respect, they need some serious help. This is such a crock of bull.
This is not the first time it has happened to me. And not the only category. I like the idea of DMOZ, but if you have this much respect from other SE's and Directories, make sure that you run a quality operation. Now I am not saying that all of the editors are bad, and I have had one good experience with a quick response. But, the bad outway the good by far. It sure doesn't take long for an editor to visit a site and decide if it is suitable to be submitted to the directory or not. And for Google to mirror the directory, makes me wonder even why they do. It is a poor resource that need major improvements.
Sorry for all of this, but I just needed to vent to some other people who understand.
Thanks,
jtoddv
Compared to what?
We have all read dozens of DMOZ rants, frankly, most of us are just tiered of them.
there is plenty of advice in this forum for submitting to DMOZ. best thing i can suggest is follow it to the letter and submit, then walk away. don't hold your breath for your submission to be accepted. you may be waiting a long time.
Hunter:
The fact that this directory is free has nothing to do with the fact that it is run poorly. There are a lot of services in this world that are free and run just fine. If people are complaining, something is wrong.
kctipton:
There are already two editors for this ultra small category.
Maybe DMOZ should start accepting donations. Maybe this insurgance of cash will help in the restructuring to make it better and reliable. I sure as hell don't have the money to shell out $299 per year to submit to Yahoo or Looksmart, but I would be willing to send $5 donation to get my site listed there in a reasonable timeframe.
i am just one little editor with one tiny little subcat ... so tiny in fact that i'm unlikely to earn enough edits to take on a larger category until i'm 130.
Crazy_Fool, if you look in the ODP editor's forum you'll find a fair amount of advice about how to qualify for additional categories.
I sure as hell don't have the money to shell out $299 per year to submit to Yahoo or Looksmart, but I would be willing to send $5 donation to get my site listed there in a reasonable timeframe
Have you tried Zeal yet? It'll get you into Looksmart for free, as long as your site meets their "noncommercial" definition...and it's a lot quicker than DMOZ (usually about a week turnaround time).
And for Google to mirror the directory, makes me wonder even why they do. It is a poor resource that need major improvements.
What would be a better directory for Google to use?
Agreed.
I get the impression that DMOZ is the easy dog to kick. It does have its faults, there's no denying it, and like everyone I get frustrated at times trying to get an editor to respond, BUT, and it's a big BUT... it can be a great resource.
There are times when searching that I DO click that category link in Google... when the standard returns are not what they could be (yes, it happens) and in these circumstances DMOZ does often turn up trumps.
Yes, and it's free. Don't undervalue that... and it is this aspect which sometimes helps the quality in my opinion. It contains sites which would simply never get into Yahoo - quality sites that just happen to have a small commercial element but would never justify $299 pa to the owner. I have some like that myself.
Having a good thrash at something may be therapeutical, but not always fair! As pointed out... is there a better directory around? If so, I've not seen it!
- editors never seem to respond.
- Submissions fail 1/2 of the time, without any reason given.
- editor applications are rejected without any reason given.
- there are large numbers of dead sites listed.
They should charge a few dollars ($10) for a review, and pay the editors $5 a review. Let's see how fast those sites get added then.
They then need to set up an auto monitoring service, watching for dead sites on a regular basis. If a site fails two or three times in a row, it should be removed to a 'suspended' database for invesitgation.
There needs to be a much more orderly monitoring of editors, to ensure that complaints are dealt with asap, and categories that aren't regularly 'edited' are investigated.
They need to employ a proper editor manager to deal with applications, and remove the nonsense "suggest two sites" business, which puts off potential editors when combined with the 90% rejection rate.
A dollar goes a long way. Do you know what you can buy for a buck. Try 10-10-220! 20 minutes for a buck and then 7¢ a minute after that!
But seriously, there has to be something done and a minimal fee is not a bad option.
jtoddv
A handful of editors, who lest we forget are volunteering their time, have receive legal threats, even been physically threatened at their home telephone. Less melodramatically, often an editor replies to a request for, say, a description update, and then the floodgates open. The submitter seems to think the editor is at his/her private disposal, sending a stream of additional e-mails, until finally the editor blocks or ignores future e-mails. (Note: I am *not* referring to any specific individual and I do *not* think anyone in this thread has done anything of the sort).
But, this is why editors are cautioned to be extremely cautious about responding to e-mail. Moreover, I try not to spend too much time with e-mail *because* I want to be attentive to directory quality-- why spend half my available editing time to re-review one or two listings when there are a hundred waiting to be reviewed the first time?
Furthermore, many find it disagreeable to edit in areas like casinos, real estate, sexual aids and Viagra, weddings, debt consolidation, weight loss, self-help, dating, travel and vacations, and a good proportion of shopping. These are among the areas that receive the most aggressive submissions of sites of questionable quality, and have a higher concentration of aggressive submitters. These are also areas where individual sites can take a long time to dissect to detect mirrors, gateways, hidden affiliate tags, etc. I do not question that the majority of people in these fields are honest and deserve a listing for their site, but again the volume of bad submissions is overwhelming. The situation is quite different in places where I edit regularly, for example ancient Roman literature :-).
How do we resolve this problem? By recruiting more editors. I am one of the so-called meta-editors who review the applications and join new members of the project. Really, it is *not* hard to get approved if you *treat the application seriously.*
- use a working e-mail address. I don't mean use your personal one, or your company one, just one you check: there is an e-mail auto-responder you must reply to when you submit your application. If you don't, a human never even sees the application.
- pick a relatively simple category (i.e. one without numerous subcategories) to start with-- most categories of about 50 or fewer sites fit the bill. Doesn't mean you have to stay there forever. You're not going to qualify for Health/Conditions_and_Diseases unless your name is C. Everett Koop, and even then we'd have to double-check.
- check your spelling, grammar, and capitalization. If you're going to be an "editor," oughtn't you be careful about spelling and grammar?
- be honest about your affiliations. Your application isn't made public anywhere, you pick your own editor name and e-mail address to use-- why lie?
- suggest 3 sites, two of which you are not affiliated with. Why? Because it tells us several things:
--- maybe the sites you think belong in the category you apply for actually belong elsewhere. This could be a sign that the directory structure needs to be corrected. It can also mean the applicant is not careful about taxonomy.
--- whether you will need to be pointed to specific areas of the Editor Guidelines after joining, or encouraged to find a mentor
--- if you can't be bothered to find two or three sites (out of millions on the web), for that matter if you can't be bothered to use the "Shift" key properly, am I supposed to believe you're going to read through all our pages and pages of required documentation reading for new editors? And then tackle a piece of hundreds of thousands of queued sites?
<< - there are large numbers of dead sites listed. >>
There are a number in certain areas right now, because the automated link checker ("Robozilla") had not run for several months. It recently finished a new run, so editors are catching up and fixing the links or removing the dead ones.
I apologize to the moderators if this post has come out as a rant.
Those two describe every directory on the internet. It's a fact of directory life.
>- editor applications are rejected without any reason given.
If they give a reason, that just gives those that would "spam the system" with submissions a road map to follow.
>- there are large numbers of dead sites listed.
Yes, Robozilla needs to make some more rounds. I think he's having a hard time keeping up with 3 million urls.
>They should charge a few dollars ($10) for a review
It's called the Open directory project. Commercialization of the directory is not a possibility.
>treat the application seriously
And understand what the ODP is and isn't about.
It's not about becoming an editor to:
- getting your site listed.
- get your friends sites listed.
- making a social, economic, or political statement.
It is about:
- Contributing to the world online community.
- eg: It's your community service project.
- open access.
- Integrity.
As you know, submission fees can make a BIG difference to the number of junk sites submitted.
> "Those two describe every directory on the internet. It's a fact of directory life."
But...these are the main problems that people complain about wrt DMOZ. At least with Yahoo and Looksmart you can pay the fee and know that you will get a response and an appeal if necessary. DMOZ leaves webmasters guessing whether their submissions have ever been seen, or whether the sites don't meet the minimum requirements or whether the editor is AWOL and so on.
Perhaps an optional fast stream guaranteed route, as Yahoo used to run would be better? Loads of businesses would be happy to pay $20 for a guaranteed review within a couple of weeks.
Or, here's a silly suggestion - how about they charge $10 and refund every site that is *accepted*; that way they are taxing the time wasters, but the directory remains free for genuine/decent sites.
Just some ideas to try and improve what appears to me to be a dying dinosaur. I might be wrong of course ;)
It seems pretty silly to me to say to people "here is the editor, please use this form to contact him/her" and then tell the editors not to respond to most of the letters. That's just asking for frustrated users.
Obviously the idea is to keep it as open as possible, but perhaps if they remove the email forms and the ICQ links it would make editors' lives easier?
Oh, and one more thing: "Don't knock it, it's free... "
I almost always get listed when trying to add to the directory. I add, remove, shift content. I rethink categories and even try different categories just in case the one I'm trying is non-responsive. To me, its all about your approach to solving a problem.
My point of the discussion summed up was that if Google is going to mirror it and other SE's are going to pull results, that gives this directory a high stature. SOMETHING WITH A HIGH STATURE SHOULD BE A WELL OILED MACHINE RUNNING SMOOTHLY. DMOZ is anything but!
The majority of it boils down to the editors and their efficencey. And, YES, there are good editors. These are the folks I would like to raise my glass high in the air to. Thank you. These editors, however, are rare. That is why this machine needs a few cases of fresh crude.
I could improve my efficiency no end if I simply deleted all submissions to obviously incorrect categories by people who cannot have bothered to read the guidelines and are incapable of writing a concise yet informative description in a hype free way.
I could improve it even further if I also deleted the sites that expect me to wait minutes for some piece of self indulgent but uninformative Flash to down load.
I actually do neither of these things. Instead, I spend my time doing the submitters' job for them by finding the proper home and rewriting their descriptions. I wait several minutes for the Flash to arrive, even though I'm darned sure the casual surfer wouldn't.
In other words, my efficiency - the rate at which I can process submissions - is in your hands. Do you want me to be helpful or do you want me to be efficient? They seem to be mutually exclusive.
I sometimes find it hard to believe I'm doing this for the satisfaction it brings.
Thank you for the time and effort you put into the directory. I really appreciate it!
Keep on editing :)
Keep with it jimnoble, that 1 good site in a 100 [or is it a 1000 :)] is worth it!
BTW welcome to WebmasterWorld
