Is DMOZ really that great? [Archive] - Search Engine Watch Forums

cbp

02-10-2005, 05:18 PM

>they need to overhaul the quality of sites,

Have a look around all the directories for the category that a site about mesothelioma would go in. DMOZ (and a couple of other ones) is the only one that does not list the spammy lawyer sites. Who has the problem with quality?

BTW - check the quality of some of the sites of the DMOZ bashers in numerous threads in numerous forums who complain about not getting listed :-) ... who has a problem with quality?

>improve communicaiton with submitters

Why? DMOZ is not in business of providing a service to submitters. I think you have a major misunderstanding of what DMOZ is and for.

>improve the search

Why? DMOZ is a directory, not a search engine. You browse directories and search using search engines. The DMOZ search works perfectly well at finding categories associated with a keyword - whats wrong with that? The search function at DMOZ is not very good at finding specific sites, but why would it want to? - DMOZ IS NOT A SEARCH ENGINE

>and start to think about how they are perceived within this industry.

You mean perceived by the industry that spams DMOZ, submits multiple times to DMOZ to multiple categories with deep links with sites that are not worthy of listing or with keyword stuffed descriptions and titles and create so much extra work for editors? Who cares how they perceive DMOZ - no amount of thinking by DMOZ is going to change that.

Its funny, that no matter how many times DMOZ editors explain in forums and elsewhere to clarify what DMOZ is and is not, the bashers, haters and ranters still paint a 'picture' of DMOZ of what they think it is, then set about bashing and criticizing that 'picture'. Its funny as they are bashing the wrong 'picture'. .... its a common flawed tactic used in debates - ie characterize the 'target' as something that its not, then attack that characertization.

>I see so much hate posts about DMOZ

In the last year or so, I have listed >200 sites that were never submitted or were listed with a day of being submitted. If all those were to post a thank you around the forums, they would far outweigh what you call as 'hate posts' from people who like to pretend that DMOZ is something that its not. Almost all of the ~200 or so probably have no idea of what SEO is or that these sorts forums exist.

BTW - I have asked this many times in many forums - please show me one post or complaint about DMOZ from one person from the group that DMOZ is made for ---- no one has yet been able to show me one ... DMOZ is not there as some sort of free listing service for webmasters - most of your so-called 'hate posts' are from those who want some sort of free listing service - a lot of other directories provide that service. I find it kinda laughable that so many people complain a service that is not even provided by DMOZ!!!

krisval

02-10-2005, 07:11 PM

My original post was to suggest ways to IMPROVE DMOZ. It wasn't to bash it. However, I will answer the following comments.

who has a problem with quality?

I do as do many others. Example: There are two major publisher "savings" sites who have original content and are two extremely high traffic properties. These were listed, but got delisted for some reason. They fully comply according to the terms. If the directory is supposed to be for users and not webmasters, these two sites should be listed. I know of a number of examples and none of them are my sites.

Why? DMOZ is not in business of providing a service to submitters.
Every organization - For profit, non-profit, whatever should try its best to facilitate good will to everyone they come into contact with.

Why? DMOZ is a directory, not a search engine[quote]
What would About.com be like if it didn't have a good site search function?

[quote]You mean perceived by the industry that spams DMOZ
Perceived on a wide basis by a lot of people in this industry.

I think you have a major misunderstanding of what DMOZ is and for.

We all know its intentions, but if you asked your mom, dad, wife, husband, beer buddy if they have ever heard of DMOZ. They'd probably say no. I bet if you set up a poll, you would find that most of the people who actually go to www. dmoz .com directly are people in the web business. Most people would simply use a search engine or Yellow Page Directory.

Last thought....I thought that a lot of your comments seemd slighting. I could be mistaken, but I recommend that you read this post:
http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=3431

cbp

02-10-2005, 07:58 PM

My original post was to suggest ways to IMPROVE DMOZ.
It may well have been, but it was based on your perception of DMOZ being something that its not.

krisval

02-10-2005, 08:21 PM

It may well have been, but it was based on your perception of DMOZ being something that its not.
Unless I am mistaken, only I know my perception and I am very well aware of DMOZ social contract. Also, regardless of what something is today....it can always be improved upon. Moving on..

xan

02-10-2005, 09:02 PM

I always liked DMOZ.

I use it often to test results on. Its a good quality manual index, so comparing with an automatic topic detector or something is a great way to assess reliability.

Its a voluntary effort, and i always find it amazing that all these people go out there and take the time to actually categorize everything. I edit at DMOZ too, and I know editors have a hard time of it. So many sites are submitted everyday, and of course we can never go fast enough. Most have jobs and families to look after :)

The encouraging thing is that they do not forego quality for speed. They never have in fact. So far no other directory of its type has even reached its ankle.

well...that's what I think.....

Windsun

02-11-2005, 02:06 AM

Why? DMOZ is not in business of providing a service to submitters. I think you have a major misunderstanding of what DMOZ is and for.

And it is exactly that attitude, in part, that antagonizes so many.

>Improve the search

Why? DMOZ is a directory, not a search engine. You browse directories and search using search engines. The DMOZ search works perfectly well at finding categories associated with a keyword - whats wrong with that?

The simple fact is, the directory structure is a total mess. You can quite easily find examples of similar websites being listed in 15+ different categories. I complained about it quite a bit when I was there, and it only got worse. Nobody is in charge there, so there are no rules for directory structure.

DMOZ has many many problems. But many within refuse to see it. And we are not talking about the DMOZ "haters" that you refer to. As a user, I find the directory nearly useless since it is so outdated, similar sites are scattered all over the map, and many of the descriptions totally suck.

Windsun

02-11-2005, 02:27 AM

The encouraging thing is that they do not forego quality for speed. They never have in fact. So far no other directory of its type has even reached its ankle.

well...that's what I think.....

The quality vs speed issue, and the horrible structure, is what finally ended up getting me fired from DMOZ way back in the dark ages. Some people did not like my critical views on DMOZ.

After seeing example after example of edits being rejected for very minor issues - one of the most common was failing to put a period at the end of the description - while millions of sites languish for months and even years is totall ludicrous.

And the so-called quality is not there overall. Some few categories with interested editors are quite good. But the majority are filled with outdated sites, dead sites, URL redirects, spam sites, affiliate sites, and the like.

But by far the biggest single problem with DMOZ as a directory is that there is no logical order to it. The split of categories at the top into business vs everyone else means that you often have two to ten totally seperate trees, all with sites with identical topics. For example, I found "coffee" in 19 different categories and subcats.

St0n3y

02-11-2005, 12:12 PM

I would be more than happy to pay for a DMOZ listing for imporoved communications when submitting sites. I think with DMOZ being a "free" service it allows some of those invovled to get on a high horse and disregard all legitimate and constructive criticisms.

I don't know anybody at DMOZ or any editors so I have no beef with anyone. Nor do I have a problem if DMOZ wishes to remain just as they are with no vision of getting better, as percieved by the masses. What I don't understand is why Google places so much importance on such a directory. I don't cede any moral authority just beause an organization is not-for-profit.

meechp123

02-12-2005, 12:33 PM

So, after all these concerns and issues, what will the people at DMOZ do? Are they planning to fix their problems or will they just brush it off, thinking that their directory is superior?

It would be great if someone from DMOZ (higher people) responded.

hardball

02-12-2005, 01:11 PM

Crawlers will always need a "safe" starting point; one that involves human judgement, DMOZ isn't perfect (the human factor) but it is as xan mentioned, of reliable quality.

sarumu1

02-13-2005, 11:38 AM

Of the major directories available to the casual websurfer, DMOZ certainly has a great reputation. How many other directories can you think of that have the same global scope that DMOZ attempts to capture?

The problems with DMOZ are warped when most of us examine it - specifically, those of us who own websites that we're optimizing offsite, or those of us who are doing so for clients.

Assuming we have a quality site that deserves to be in DMOZ (that's a major assumption), there isn't a conspiracy to keep us out. The DMOZ editors want desperately to let us in. They don't want to do it for us-the-webmasters or for us-the-SEO dudes, even though we're swell guys and gals, but they want to do it for us-the-casual-websurfers who are looking for good sites that contain the info we need - and not deal with the typical spam and sites backed by deep pockets that are spit out by the major search engines.

For us - the webmasters and seo dudes - a listing adds credence for our sites, and might direct some traffic our way. We curse at DMOZ as we wait and wait and wait to be listed. But we're being kept out by a numbers game - I think it's safe to assume that the number of editors compared to the daily submissions received is miniscule. They don't want to accept every Tom, Dick or Harriet (pc) as an editor to help them deal with the overflow because they want to maintain the quality of the directory.

People seem to think that not getting listed in DMOZ hurts them. If the site in question is truly good, then people will come - and backlinks will be created - and it will eventually be listed in DMOZ. But if you think having a right-here-right-now listing in DMOZ is central to your web marketing campaign, you're wrong - and that's the succinct description of one of the groups (the larger group) of people frustrated with DMOZ.

The other group of frustrated people are the ones who wants better, more up to date sites listed as they try to mine the net for information. Again, it's a numbers game and the editors are trying to make a dent in the submissions they receive. Remember, they're volunteers. If you're that frustrated, you should apply to be an editor and help them out. If you don't want to be an editor, then you should simply say "thank you" to those who are instead of muttering curses under your breath.

Complaining of poor communication as you wait for your site to be listed? Again, it's a numbers game. Communicating with you to say your site isn't going to be listed for **** reasons takes time away from evaluating more submissions. Again, that's the attitude of a site owner waiting to have their site listed. If you were simply Joe Blow walking down the boulevard (of broken dreams) and found a great site that you have nothing to do with, and if you were a smart web denizen, then you'd submit that site to DMOZ as well. A lot of people do that. Why should DMOZ communicate with the person who has no vested interest in the site they submitted? And that's the answer that you don't want to hear. DMOZ isn't a service. It's an attempt at categorizing the web. They're not going to communicate with the person who has no vested interest in the site, and they're not going to communicate with the person who does (although, they do communicate in the resource-zone, just enough to let you know that your site hasn't evaporated into electrons and is awaiting review). They want to do their volunteer work and not be bothered as they go about it.

DMOZ has lofty goals. Insurmountable goals, to be precise. The web is growing far faster than they can categorize. They want to do it the free and democratic way, which is very noble. The little guy has the same opportunity as the big corporation. If they offer a paid/ expedited review as an option, the listings produced for little guys will be equivalent to a figurative trickle or leak, compared to the deluge of listings backed by money. Eventually, DMOZ's corporate owners may introduce that as an option, but I honestly hope they don't. I think as the web becomes more popular, more people will want to help with it's organization, and DMOZ will get the quality editors that they so desperately need.

Subbu - A frustrated webmaster just like you who would like to see his site listed in DMOZ. (http://resource-zone.com/forum/showthread.php?p=147617#post147617)

macdesign

02-13-2005, 11:33 PM

My wife never heard of DMOZ, my wife never uses it, my wife does not care. My wife makes money from clients that came to her web site from people doing searches from sites that use DMOZ data - not from Google. I doubt if any of those people ever heard of DMOZ either.

My wife is happy - she made money because of DMOZ despite nt knowing what it is.

Her clients are happy, they found her services without knowing or caring about DMOZ.

Whichever editor added the site [before I ever became an editor] provided a service to some users of DMOZ.

semchick

02-14-2005, 10:49 AM

IMO, DMOZ is a strong backlink to your site, and nothing more.

It's admirable that long ago, someone decided to create a human edited directory, but I agree with some of the other posters that many of the editors have become lazy and elitest (in general - I know some editors are great and really care) :D

Just my 0.02

Windsun

02-14-2005, 11:47 PM

.....If they offer a paid/ expedited review as an option, the listings produced for little guys will be equivalent to a figurative trickle or leak, compared to the deluge of listings backed by money. Eventually, DMOZ's corporate owners may introduce that as an option, but I honestly hope they don't. I think as the web becomes more popular, more people will want to help with it's organization, and DMOZ will get the quality editors that they so desperately need.

Subbu - A frustrated webmaster just like you who would like to see his site listed in DMOZ. (http://resource-zone.com/forum/showthread.php?p=147617#post147617)

As much as AOL might like to make DMOZ a pay service, according to the original DMOZ charter or contract, they cannot. Legally they would have to totall disband it and start over.

However, AOL handles DMOZ pretty stupidly. They could make it a flagship advertising pull - "see!! look how neat we are - we offer this FREE service because we are AOL!!!" kind of a PR, doing it for the public good type thing. Instead, they offer almost no support - it is essentially a leaderless orphan.

krisval

02-15-2005, 05:34 PM

As much as AOL might like to make DMOZ a pay service, according to the original DMOZ charter or contract, they cannot. Legally they would have to totall disband it and start over.

I have read this a lot. Mostly from editors, but is this fact? I am not an attorney nor are most in this forum. I sincerely doubt, however, that the social contract is a non-reversible binding contract. I would like to hear from someone that really knows if this is true and quote a source within AOL/Time Warner/Netscape.

I would like to quote one line from the contract that seems to dispute this belief that the contract is permanent and binding:
"We may edit, move, or delete any content on the ODP (including content that you have provided) or terminate all or part of the ODP without notice or liability for any reason at our sole discretion."

macdesign

02-15-2005, 06:14 PM

IMO - It actually doesn't matter if it's reversable since the majority of editors and certainly the 20% that do 80% of the work, would quit, and ODP would cease to exist. At that point it would have to start over and rebuild itself - it's much easier to start a new paid directory.

Also once they started charging - Google would drop ODP as a source, and then no one would want to be in ODP.

St0n3y

02-15-2005, 06:44 PM

Google would drop ODP as a source, and then no one would want to be in ODP.

That's the issue for me. For Google to pretent that DMOZ is somehow superior to other directories because they do not charge is pretty lame. If getting paid is bad, then Google shouldn't be in the business of Adwords or Adsense, or anything else. It's downright hypocritical. Google should focus on the quality of the directory and its internal structure, not whether its free or not.

krisval

02-15-2005, 06:45 PM

Editors would quit - I agree
It woudn't be valuable - Disagree
Look at Yahoo. They offered free submission at one point. Look at MSN.
The directory is growing very quickly. Depending on the price and the amount of exposure, people would still be willing to pay to get in. Especially if they featured the directory on their home page as Yahoo does and also included the results in their SERPs powered by G.

Regardless, At some point they will need to make some decisions -sell it, kill it, build it. They are a publicly traded company with a lot of turmoil and growing pains from the mergers, I can't imagine that they will run an unprofitable property forever.

Phoenix

02-15-2005, 07:21 PM

This has happened to me on several occasions; I use a simple search query such as "rhode island mortgage" and I get this error:

The Open Directory search is currently under a heavy load. Please try back later. No Open Directory Project results found

As I understand it, DMOZ was never made to be a search engine, so it can't accomodate many searches, and as far as I have heard they don't care if you can search or not.

I completely stopped visiting DMOZ, submitting sites, submitting client sites, wasting my time trying to find the right category, spending time in resource zone about a year ago. I have not looked back, nor has the decision adversely affected business or the SEO I do. I realized DMOZ was creating more more headache than it was worth, whats the point I kept asking? Anything you can obtain at DMOZ can be found somewhere else. If you are going to submit to DMOZ I would recommend submitting and then never think about it again. If it happens it happens, if not you tried.

xan

02-15-2005, 07:28 PM

It depends how you look at it. From my point of view in IR research its priceless. Its a good knowledge base that is compiled by humans. We don't use it for results at my end, we use it to compare automatic classification to human classifiation or hierarchical taxonomies of documents.

Some of you have just discovered WordNet, it has always been a very common tool, and it is often used in combination with ODP for the creation of ontologies(topic maps also get used here). I can tell you that Google and other SE's download the information from the ODP through the Resources Description Framework (RDF). The data then has to be dumped in a database somewhere. Its not secret that ODP doesn't really provide an interface like WordNet has or CyC.

For my purposes, beautiful. Seeing it hasn't got an interface still, could it be its made to be used by machines?

DMOZ elitists are only like that because they have been given reason to be.

randfish

02-15-2005, 07:40 PM

I completely stopped visiting DMOZ, submitting sites, submitting client sites, wasting my time trying to find the right category, spending time in resource zone about a year ago. I have not looked back, nor has the decision adversely affected business or the SEO I do.
A very wise choice.

However, I do wish to take issue with search engines (particularly Google) not recognizing or penalizing for the duplicate content use of the DMOZ directory. In my industry, there are 15+ pages in the top 100 results that are the same DMOZ category listed again and again on other sites that use the results. I have no problem with sites wanting to copy DMOZ info, but this is a poor move by (in this case) Google that can easily be avoided.

Secondarily, the links from DMOZ deserve their value, but they do not deserve the additional link popularity that comes from all the DMOZ clones. Google and other need to find a way to de-value these links. Two sites I compete against rank in the top ten with less than a dozen backlinks, very poor quality sites (and poor quality business ethics I might add), yet are ranked highly because the DMOZ clones all link to them with their anchor text (thanks to a wise SEO who changed their name for the web). Link popularity from DMOZ clones needs to be discounted - it's technically only one link.

donp

02-16-2005, 10:46 AM

If you think Google is broken, DMOZ never worked. Any company or entity that takes 6 months or more for a fairly simple routine is broken - this is not the Manhattan project. I have applied several times over the years to become an editor - I figured maybe I could help solve the problem rather than bitch about it, but have been politely declined each time.
I do submit my clients sites to them as best according to the guidelines as I can - it's good business, but I have always ranked my clients sites without them, so I'm thinking that their impact is becoming less and less as an authoritative source, and that's a very good thing.

PortProphecy

02-24-2005, 12:37 PM

DMOZ is most definitely broken. I frequently search the site and get a message such as "due to heavy traffic your search cannot be performed". GEEZ! Why would anyone want to have a site listed in directory that sometimes can't handle a search query? I don't want to offend those associated with the ODP and it's admirable goals, but Yahoo is the standard of directories as far I'm concerned.

Phoenix

02-24-2005, 06:31 PM

DMOZ is most definitely broken. I frequently search the site and get a message such as "due to heavy traffic your search cannot be performed". GEEZ! Why would anyone want to have a site listed in directory that sometimes can't handle a search query?

Well, because the point is to be broken. They are expressly a directory only and not a search engine. So if the search doesn't work, then they don't care. You know it would techically serve them a whole lot better in the public eye to have the search working and not be so laissez-faire about it. But I guess ODP has spoken and search engine is not part of the vocabulary.

PortProphecy

02-24-2005, 08:18 PM

Well, because the point is to be broken. They are expressly a directory only and not a search engine. So if the search doesn't work, then they don't care. You know it would techically serve them a whole lot better in the public eye to have the search working and not be so laissez-faire about it. But I guess ODP has spoken and search engine is not part of the vocabulary.

No site that big, with that many thousands of pages, should be unsearchable. It looks totally unprofessional to get error messages when you search their site. I understand it's a directory, but alot of people don't want to click through 10 or 20 pages to get to the category of sites they want. If, for example, I am looking for "shopping search engines" I should be able to do a quick search and be taken to relevant sites. Not taken to a message saying "we are busy, come back later." No thanks. Off to Yahoo I go.

macdesign

02-24-2005, 09:26 PM

Making sure to take your checkbook. :)

But seriously, I'm sure many editors would love to see search at least working, and even better to put a decent search facility in place that is much more sophisticated. But that would require someone to send some money and programming resources to do it.

From another point of view, since most posts in SEO forums say no-one uses DMOZ/ODP directly - the only point of submitting to DMOZ is to get into Google - why waste any money fixing it? Either lots of people use ODP directly, and we need a good search, or most of the public never heard of it. You can't have it both ways.

Anyway, that's not something that 99.99% of the editors have any control over.

You can of course go to the Google directory and use the search there.

Phoenix

02-25-2005, 02:29 AM

From another point of view, since most posts in SEO forums say no-one uses DMOZ/ODP directly - the only point of submitting to DMOZ is to get into Google - why waste any money fixing it? Either lots of people use ODP directly, and we need a good search, or most of the public never heard of it. You can't have it both ways.

Anyway, that's not something that 99.99% of the editors have any control over.

Yeah thats a good point. I guess I have never actually heard some say they are "going over to DMOZ" to do a search for "shopping search engines" or "lets see what the ODP lists on the subject". I love to interview regular people on their search habits, and how they may conduct a search for something, and what they actually do to find it. Most of the time, people are really clueless as to where they have been, where they are going, and even sometimes what they are looking for. They just click around randomly on what interests them. I have heard "we searched some huge directory place, but couldn't find it, so we just went to Google instead." But I can't recall in any of the people I have talked to mention ODP or DMOZ by name as a place they have visited recently to find something.

PortProphecy

02-25-2005, 11:36 AM

But I can't recall in any of the people I have talked to mention ODP or DMOZ by name as a place they have visited recently to find something.

I wonder why that is. :D

macdesign

02-25-2005, 12:53 PM

Because people are inherenty extremely lazy and for the most part clued out about the internet. If their ISP has a home page that's a DMOZ clone they use that for searching, is they have AOL, they use that for searching. If the browser installation stuck in a link to a search engine they use that. If they have a bookmark for a search engine they used years ago, they keep using that.

AltaVista used to be the best search engine, and I see people continuing to use it and don't know what Google is.

Most people who use Google have absolutely no idea about special search expressions.

On top of that ODP is not a search engine, it's a directory that requires intelligence and some extra to use effectively. The average internet user does not have what it takes.

I do customer tech support work, and I'm amazed at how many people cannot find info on Google, even if they know about ODP, it would not be any use for them.

What I find amusing is the phone calls I get from SEO companies offering to promote my site who also have not heard of the ODP. Duh :rolleyes:

PortProphecy

02-25-2005, 02:41 PM

I do agree with those that have stated that Google presents the ODP in a much better way than the ODP's own site. Netscape also presents it well. If one of these companies or another like them would purchase the ODP, they would have the muscle and capital to really clean things up. Of course, then it would probably cease to be free. But I think the way things are going now, soon the ODP will be permanently broken. It's just too big and too important nowadays to be run the way that worked in its early days.

macdesign

02-25-2005, 06:34 PM

kctipton

02-25-2005, 08:57 PM

(I really can't believe that the mods are allowing such a pointless ODP-bashing thread to go on like this.)

xan

02-26-2005, 02:26 PM

(I really can't believe that the mods are allowing such a pointless ODP-bashing thread to go on like this.)

Its not very nice is it. I don't think charities get treated like this, but that's probably because people don't make money off the back of them. Business has few ethics
;)

donp

02-26-2005, 04:57 PM

My bet is that Xan and kctipton (above) are editors and full of smug self-satisfaction that they are contrbuting towards the greater good and the rest of us are greedy web developers or owners using them.

Bad news, gang, about the only ones looking at DMOZ are the same people you are crying about. I never heard of anyone going to DMOZ looking for information, compared to Google and Yahoo, they aren't even a blip on the horizon.
Unfortunately, Google uses them as an authorative source, so we all have to follow their rules, if we want the "authoratative" inbound link. However, I rank all my sites despite them, so I place a decreasing reliance on their benefit.

If they keep doing things the same way they have for the past 5 years, we won't be worrying about them long, they are sliding by the wayside and quite rightfully so.

It was a great idea, too bad they didn't know how to handle it.

PortProphecy

02-26-2005, 05:07 PM

My bet is that Xan and kctipton (above) are editors and full of smug self-satisfaction that they are contrbuting towards the greater good and the rest of us are greedy web developers or owners using them.

They sure sound like DMOZ editors to me. While the whole idea of DMOZ needs to be reworked, the editorial process in particular is BAD. Just go the the Resource Zone Forum and see how most of the editors act.

Some things you will see on that board are people asking about their submissions and getting responses that are short and mean, like "Site rejected. Don't resubmit. I doubt that site will be accepted anywhere." Sometimes these rejections are over petty things like a misspelled word on a page or bad punctuation. And they WILL NOT tell you why you are rejected. I have seen people ask and get responses like, "I don't have to tell you." So how could possibly correct the situation? Simple. Don't bother submitting anything to them at all. It seems most of these editors don't want to be bothered with your submission in the first place.

cbp

02-26-2005, 07:05 PM

While the whole idea of DMOZ needs to be reworked, the editorial process in particular is BAD
hhmmmm.....

DMOZ is by far the largest Directory out there - no other directory comes remotely close.
DMOZ is by far the fastest growing Directory out there - no other directory comes remotely close.

If its pocess is "BAD" - how is it able to achieve this awesome result?

You also have a major misunderstanding of the purpose of resource zone --- maybe you should read the forum FAQ's there before complaining here. If you took the time to understand some things about DMOZ, you would know why no one gets told why they are rejected. Instead you choose to fall into the common flaw of characterizing DMOZ as something that its not, then whine about that characterization.

donp - for my sites ~1-2% of my visitors do come from DMOZ or one of its clones (thats more than a blimp - thats 100's of really good quality visitors) - where did you get the impression that no one uses it to search? .... or are you just making that up to give strength to your whining.

You also seem to be under the impression that the importance of DMOZ is waning for search engines... again - where did you get that from? Did you make it up to give strength to your whining?. Given, that under a number of circumstances Google is now using the DMOZ descrption in the SERPs, is that not evidence of the importance that Google give to DMOZ's endeavour?
Don't bother submitting anything to them at all.
Thats incredibly short sighted. For the 5-10 minutes it takes to find the right category, write a guideline compliant title and description and submitting, what do you get:

1) A free one way link
2) A link from an authority site
3) A link that does not have to be reciprocated
4) A link with OK PR
5) A link that is cloned >4000 times, a surprising number of which have PR and are in Google
6) The psychological boost from the 'seal of approval' a listing apparently gives some people
7) Some argue strongly that google does give an extra boost to DMOZ listed site (I don't)
8) In some circumstances, both Google and Yahoo are using the DMOZ description.
9) A small amount of free traffic

Are you trying to convince people that this is not worth it???

PortProphecy

02-26-2005, 07:41 PM

You also have a major misunderstanding of the purpose of resource zone --- maybe you should read the forum FAQ's there before complaining here. If you took the time to understand some things about DMOZ, you would know why no one gets told why they are rejected.

I have no misunderstanding. The fact that these guys can reject anyone and not have any reason is certainly something to complain about. For example, let's say I'm and editor and I'm really ticked off today. What's to prevent me from just rejecting a hundred sites today just to be spitelful. Nothing. I don't have anyone to answer to. I don't have to give any reasons. I have no boss. I can't get fired. I would say that is a broken system.

donp - for my sites ~1-2% of my visitors do come from DMOZ or one of its clones (thats more than a blimp - thats 100's of really good quality visitors) - where did you get the impression that no one uses it to search? .... or are you just making that up to give strength to your whining.

Donp makes a very valid point. Those visitors almost certainly are coming through Google's version of DMOZ. If DMOZ continues down this path Google will find a better directory (such as Zeal maybe) for its directory. Then those visitors you're getting will be no more.

Marcia

02-27-2005, 04:35 AM

dyn4mik3:
For a free effort - I think dmoz is amazing. You have to remember that every link is checked over by a human editor, so its going to take a long time.

I've been waiting a couple months for my site review. Although it takes forever to get reviewed, the editors over at resource-zone usually respond within the day about your questions.
I couldn't agree more.

Where in the world some people get the idea that other people are supposed to put in time and work for FREE so that it can pad their pockets is beyond me; but maybe I read Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead one too many times years ago.

semchick:
IMO, DMOZ is a strong backlink to your site, and nothing more.
Strong backlink I agree with; but looking at the prominent place that link analysis has held in IR research for years, and still does and will continue to as algorithms become more sophisticated, the strengths are highly under-rated. It's probably just as well; the less that gets around the better off the people are who have less dreck shoveled at them and piling up in the queues, as long as the myth perpetrates itself.

As long as the general consensus is that it's nothing more, or even that it has no worth at all, the better off everyone is - both the targets of the masses of cruft shoved their way, and those around who do recognize the value as being well beyond "just a link."

kctipton
(I really can't believe that the mods are allowing such a pointless ODP-bashing thread to go on like this.)
Personally speaking as an individual who loathes abuse of any kind, there's nothing I hate worse than publicly showing disrespect, bashing and what amounts to discrediting and demeaning the honest efforts people make - especially when it's on their own time, free and for nuttin'.

But these cases may just be an exception to that kc, and may just have hidden fringe benefits for others among us. :cool:

PortProphecy

02-28-2005, 11:38 AM

Personally speaking as an individual who loathes abuse of any kind, there's nothing I hate worse than publicly showing disrespect, bashing and what amounts to discrediting and demeaning the honest efforts people make - especially when it's on their own time, free and for nuttin'.

Well said, Marcia. I agree. The way DMOZ certainly disrespects those people making websites, many on their own time and for free. They publicly bash and demean people on their Resource Zone Forum, and discredit thousands of honest efforts people make to become an editor and become part of a solution.

macdesign

02-28-2005, 12:55 PM

Unfortunately a lot of the people on Resource Zone are outright liers. There are some asking supposedly innocent questions about their little site, when in fact they have several different mirror versions of those sites that have been submiited many times. Others post questions as though they are new to the internet, when in fact they are professional SEO's. Getting into DMOZ is very high on the marketing agenda for many web site owners, and there are no holds barred in what they do to get listed.

A poster recently asked why is site was not listed, and when asked claimed he did not own any other sites. Something sounded wrong, and I found he actually owned 7 different related sites, three of which were already listed. I suspect he has more, and is also in collaboration with his neighbor across the sites who appears to have some other related sites.

If you look at that thread he will seem like a small business owner trying to get his small business listed. In reality it's a massive spam operation.

Windsun

03-02-2005, 01:35 AM

Windsun

03-02-2005, 01:39 AM

5) A link that is cloned >4000 times, a surprising number of which have PR and are in Google

That mantra keeps getting repeated over and over, yet not once in 6 years have I ever seen any of our sites listed on any of those clones.

So, yeah, maybe if it is porn or Britney Spears listing it might get repeated 4000 times.

Marcia

03-02-2005, 01:41 AM

My bet is that Xan and kctipton (above) are editors and full of smug self-satisfaction that they are contrbuting towards the greater good and the rest of us are greedy web developers or owners using them.
And the links to their profiles show what? Are there any editorials on the pages linked to? What does it show, if anything, other than that they are editors?

It never ceases to amaze me how many clones there are of Johnny Carson's "Carnac the Mindreader" out there who purport to know exactly what others are thinking with absolutely NO basis for their suppositions.

PortProphecy

03-02-2005, 12:20 PM

And the links to their profiles show what? Are there any editorials on the pages linked to? What does it show, if anything, other than that they are editors?

It simply shows that the opinions those two expressed earlier in this thread stating DMOZ is perfect and the rest of us are <snip>...well....their opinions might be a little biased.

Marcia

03-02-2005, 12:43 PM

It simply shows that the opinions those two expressed earlier in this thread stating DMOZ is perfect
Huh? Where does this say that DMOZ is perfect?
(I really can't believe that the mods are allowing such a pointless ODP-bashing thread to go on like this.)
I haven't seen one post that even hints at DMOZ being perfect - not in this thread or in any of possibly hundreds of posts about ODP that I've read over the years.

...well....their opinions might be a little biased.
Might be, and then again might not be. Being an editor is not a reliable indicator of anything of the sort. I, for one, am NOT an editor and I happen to fully agree with some of the points made by "their side" in some of these recurring kicking matches.

A submission is nothing more that a request for inclusion. And a request of ANY kind does not constitute an obigation on the part of anyone to comply with the request, regardless of what kind of request and to whomever the request is made. But maybe my opinion is biased, based on having put in something like around 7-8K hours of VOLUNTEER SERVICE in online communities in the past 5 years.

It always reminds me of a friend I had who, when her children would DEMAND things of her, would very plainly tell them, "I'm your mother and I love you honey, but just remember that I don't WORK for you."

PortProphecy

03-02-2005, 02:16 PM

But maybe my opinion is biased, based on having put in something like around 7-8K hours of VOLUNTEER SERVICE in online communities in the past 5 years.

Wow. A gold star for you! Sounds like you are proud of your volunteer services, as you should be. :)

I would not consider your opinion biased, and you are as entitled to have an opinion as anyone else. BUT as kctipton and xan are PART of the organization in question they clearly don't have objective opinions. And that statement they made about this "pointless ODP-bashing" clearly insinuates that all those posts expressing a less-than-perfect view of DMOZ are invalid in their minds. Therefore, they MUST think DMOZ to be perfect.

Marcia

03-04-2005, 12:34 AM

No, I am not unbiased at all. I am very biased toward ODP because I actually *USE* the directory - not as a search engine, it is not a search engine and never claimed to be.

And yes, I'm very proud to be one of the people who believes in "giving back" to the world for having received from the world. It's give and take.

BUT as kctipton and xan are PART of the organization in question they clearly don't have objective opinions.
Please do not insult people's intelligence by expecting them to believe statements based on false logic that only serves to make it look like some kind of sour grapes.

People can definitely be part of something and remain unbiased as well as being biased without being part of something - and be totally objective.

That said, the topic of this thread is "Is ODP that great?" - not "neener, neener, my site didn't get in so ODP sucks."

It makes me wonder, if the titles of threads aren't read and interpreted properly and responded to appropriately, whether or not the people whining and bashing actually read and heed the guidelines for submitting to ODP in the first place. Maybe if people did there wouldn't be all the whining and bleating we see. I've seen people howling about their *wonderful* sites not getting in that were blatant affiliate cookie-cutter sites without a shred of anything original, or having their editor applications denied who couldn't put a sentence together correctly or know that words like *i* or that the first word in a sentence need to be upper case.

We really don't need to be unbiased - we just need to be realistic - and furthermore, to act like adults rather than petulant children whose parents didn't give them 3 ice creams for dessert.

I'd also like to remind people posting in this thread - and other threads as well - that personal attacks on individual members are NOT appreciated or welcome in ANY of the forums at SEW and violate the Terms of Usage.

St0n3y

03-04-2005, 12:02 PM

It seems to me that whenever someone posts some legitimate problems with DMOZ, instead of the actual concerns being addressed in an understanding manner they are simply trashed as bing ODP bashers?

C'mon, love it or hate it, DMOZ has its share of problems. Regardless whether its a search engine or a directory, there are serious professional issues over there. I don't claim to be a search engine, but if the search feature on MY site doesn't work, I'm going to get it fixed. Why do we expect any less from DMOZ? Its all well and good that they have thousands of volunteers putting in their hard earned time, but can't we point out flaws in the system without those volunteers taking it as a personal attack?

Oh, and without making a personal attack on ANY ODP editors, I do find it interesting that editors seem have more time available for posting in the resource zone forum than they do actually researching sites. Just a perception, but why not implement a system where if a category is extremely backed up that an editor for another category can't jump in and go ahead and review the site? Maybe that system is there and they simply don't want to do that, I don't know. And why not a simple system to inform people the status of their submissions? Wouldn't that save DMOZ editors an incredible amount of time? No more resubmissions, no more "what's my site status" emails and forum posts. heck, communication such as this can be automated... a simple accepted or rejected email or a monthly email stating your site is in the queue number X of X to be reviewed.

Its obvious DMOZ does not care about service, and certainly that is their right, but wouldn't a few simple measures make the organization as a whole run better?

Marcia

03-04-2005, 12:11 PM

stony, that's a good post because it looks like you were actually thinking hard, and made some positive, concrete suggestions.

Personally, I think the whole ODP situation would be solved very simply if Google would just buy AOL.

donp

03-04-2005, 01:09 PM

Google, Yahoo and others have a ton of money out there just to keep up automated indexing on a greatly expanding web. ODP is still doing it by hand the way they have pretty much always done it. As a result, they are way behind with indexing the requests they get, let alone what great content is out there that doesn't request a listing.

I believe a great many of the editors are doing the best they can and I laud their efforts. The goals they strive for are admirable, but as the web expands, they are getting farther and farther behind the curve. Improving the technology and streamling the system for them may be what they need, just don't know exactly what they do need or who is going to pay for it.

So, maybe we can turn this forum around and come up with suggestions on how they can better achieve their goals, and what we can do to help.

My 1st suggestion is to review their editor guidelines and start letting more editors in rather than find ways to exclude them. I understand that they want the best editors they can get, I applied and was found wanting, despite the fact that I know my area ( Florida Keys) very well and can provide valuable content. My attitude is not to find ways to exclude sites, but to add sites that provide valuable information and resources to potential viewers, regardless of style. If a business owner makes a home-brew mom 'n pop website that gives information and worthwhile content, to me, they are in - the more the merrier. Evidently, this isn't what the ODP wants, so mayhap I shouldn't be an editor. I've applied twice in the past 4 years.

macdesign

03-04-2005, 05:44 PM

Some very good points - here is some answers - other editors might not agree with me.

Oh, and without making a personal attack on ANY ODP editors, I do find it interesting that editors seem have more time available for posting in the resource zone forum than they do actually researching sites.If you looked [at the secret logs] you would find most of the editors who post on RZ are some of the most productive editors you can find. Most of those editors have reviewed at least 10,000 sites, many of them much. much more. Answering questions at RZ takes a lot less time than actual editing, and some editors do it as a break, others as a learning experience. Many of the posts from submiitters there end up being used to make behind the scene changes. As an example one person asked about their site, I realized it had been submitted to the wrong category because the category description was incorrect. This led to an internal discussion about the category, and changes in the description, an adjustment to related categories, the removal of several misplaced sites, the listing of the original site [that was the subject of discussion] in the correct category [which was one that I edited in] and a clarification from the submitter that they had purchased another site from it's previous owner, and that site though previously rejected was thus allowed in.

RZ provides a good testing ground that has led to changes in editing, changes in guidelines, etc.

Just a perception, but why not implement a system where if a category is extremely backed up that an editor for another category can't jump in and go ahead and review the site? This in fact happens, as a result of internal "help wanted" postings. four of the categories I edit are a result of someone posting or asking me directly that help was needed there, and I seemed to have the experience. Another whole section was given to me when I applied for a subcategory, expecting to do less than a 100 edits. A senior editor realized that broader help was needed, and assigned me much broder range of categories, which has led to me to doing over 2000 edits there.

And why not a simple system to inform people the status of their submissions?A very normal and sensible question. However, the pros and cons of this have been discussed at length, and it has been decided that the problem of giving feedback to spammers outweights the benefits. Apart from that, it would require the development and installation of an integrated opt-in mailing system, and the purchase of extra equipment to carry the load.

Its obvious DMOZ does not care about service, and certainly that is their right, but wouldn't a few simple measures make the organization as a whole run better?Yes, there are many things that are on editor wish lists. But my opinion is there is not enough paid technical staff to implement them.
My 1st suggestion is to review their editor guidelines and start letting more editors in rather than find ways to exclude them.The problem is that editors that don't "get it" end up causing more problems than it's worth. Good editing requires a different frame of mind; a good writer, and someone who knows a subject well do not always make a good editor. FRom what I see, editors are allowed in many cases, hoping that they will turn into better editors. Usually they do, sometimes they don't and have to be dropped.

If a business owner makes a home-brew mom 'n pop website that gives information and worthwhile content, to me, they are in - the more the merrier. Evidently, this isn't what the ODP wants, so mayhap I shouldn't be an editor. I've applied twice in the past 4 years.There is absolutely nothing in the guidelines to exclude such sites. We care about information, not cute webdesign, I much prefer to list such sites, rather than another corporate Flash site. Now there are some sites that are so badly designed as to be unusable and unreadable - but I would guess thats maybe one out every 2000 sites I review.

donaldb

03-07-2005, 04:34 PM

As usual, good points by macdesign - thanks. One thing I wanted to address is this idea of "service" as in:
Its obvious DMOZ does not care about service, and certainly that is their right, but wouldn't a few simple measures make the organization as a whole run better?Where did this idea come from that the ODP is offering a service? I think that because of the similarity to directories like Yahoo and such, who do offer a listing service, people assume that the ODP is the same type of animal, when in fact it isn't. The ODP is trying to list lot and lots of web sites, but we have never stated that it is a service for people to get their web sites listed. I know that it looks the same because we do ask people to help us build the directory by offering us suggestions, but that shouldn't be confused with the submission process to something like Yahoo where the web sites will be listed in a specific amount of time. I think this is why so many people get ticked off. They have this false expectation of a "service" that doesn't actually exist. And it has nothing to do with the ODP being a volunteer organization. It's really just the fact that the ODP is not a listing service - we're just trying to build a directory. Before I became an editor I didn't understand this either, but once it sunk in that the ODP was not a listing service it really started to make more sense to me.

I also wanted to address this issue of accepting more editors. I don't have any numbers to back this up, but I read a lot of these forums and I think that I can safely say that for every person I see posting in a forum that they were unfairly denied being accepted as an editor, there are probably 10 new editors that are accepted into the system. You rarely see someone posting in the forums that they were accepted, but you often see people posting that they were denied - that's not good or bad, it's just the way things are. It tends to make it look like we don't accept many new editors. Since March 1st we have joined 115 new editors.

I don't want to really drag this off-topic, because it's unfair to the mods and admins here, but one other small thing is the complaints about the Resource Zone. Stop complaining about the R-Z in outside forums - it's not fair to the other forum owners. If you've got a beef about something in the R-Z report it to an R-Z Admin. We can't fix it if we don't know about it. For some reason people don't report problems to us, they just complain in other forums - it's very odd :)

St0n3y

03-07-2005, 05:18 PM

OK, lets take the point that DMOZ is not offering a service. There is a different between offering good "service" and offering "a service". Businesses that sell products also must be concerned about good customer service. Charity organizations must also be concerned about offering good service. Maybe that's DMOZ problem. They don't offer A service so they feel they don't need to offer any kind of service to help build their reputation among the community. It's too bad, if that is the prevailing attitude.

I get the sense that DMOZ points the finger everywhere else whenever a legitimate complaint arises. Instead of looking at ways to make their search work, we get "we're not a search engine". Instead of looking for ways to improve communication with those submitting sites we get "We are not a service".

It would appear that he best thing DMOZ could do for itself would be to remove the search feature altogether (no more complaints about it not working!) and remove the submit a site feature. Surely if the editors cared enough about building the directory they could find the sites on their own without them being submitted.

donaldb

03-07-2005, 05:55 PM

No editor has ever said that they were happy with the situation with the search, but basically it's beyond our control so we live with it. It's not like it hasn't been discussed internally. We can complain, and complain, and complain, but that really doesn't solve the problem. Until AOL decides to invest more resources there's nothing that we can do about it. Basically it works for us the way we need it to work. It's unfortunate that it's not the most robust tool in the world, but maybe someday they'll install something new. Who knows? In the meantime, use Google :)

Surely if the editors cared enough about building the directory they could find the sites on their own without them being submitted. That's exactly what we do! Many of us use the suggested sites as a secondary resource to help us find sites to add to the directory, but it's not our primary source. Good web sites are all around us every day. When I spot them, I add them. There's no secret to that :)

I'm not making any excuses for anything. I'm just saying that people seem to be under the impression that the ODP is a listing service when it isn't. We're building a directory, and we do apreciate all the help people give us by suggesting web sites for us to add, but we don't always add them in a way that other directories add them, or in the way the suggestors want us to add them. Stop thinking of the ODP as a listing service like Yahoo and you'll see that we really are a completely different thing. We may look the same because we are a directory, but that's pretty much where the similarities end.

If we're offering any service, it's actually to the downstream users of our data via the RDF files. We give them the data and they comply with the guidelines that we set out for giving us credit for that data. That's pretty much the only service that we offer. So if those downstream data users have a problem with the service that we are offering, then they should speak up about it.

I think we're probably getting way off topic here. We all know where threads like this can lead. It never ends well :)

meechp123

03-31-2005, 06:36 PM

Well, on the good side, I haven't had another issue with DMoz breaking on me; when I do a search query, I actually get results.

Here's another issue though, I was just browsing their forums to check out sites and check out how DMoz editors react with the general public. I must say, I'm not pleased at all. Check out this posting from this poor individual who is just looking for some answers:

http://resource-zone.com/forum/showthread.php?t=24493

Now, how is this acceptable? This is a reply from one of the editors:

"Nothing you can do to assist. It simply means that it is waiting to be reviewed. the six month wait is to keep overly aggressive webmasters from pestering us hourly for status checks. It could be reviewed tomorrow, or three years from tomorrow."

Now, check out the site that's being submitted. I can understand Dmoz editors treating websites that are clearly developed for spamming and ads, but, this company is an actual company that has a service to offer and they simply want to be listed. Isn't the whole purpose of the Internet is access to information? This person followed the rules (sure, they were 5 whole days early and asking for a status update...big freaking deal) and they just want their site listed.

For what it's worth, it would be a wonderful day if Google stopped pulling listing from DMOZ. It might have been a great idea initially; now, I think it's just full of people who get a thrill out of making people wait around.

Or am I wrong? If so, prove it.

jimnoble

03-31-2005, 07:50 PM

This person followed the rules (sure, they were 5 whole days early and asking for a status update...big freaking deal)Doesn't that mean they didn't follow the rules :) ?

That forum's rules have evolved to their current state through neccessity. If we didn't have them, the dwindling number of volunteers prepared to help out there would soon become countable on the fingers of a pair of mittens.

Do you think that forums shouldn't have rules?

Would you prefer that forums had rules but didn't enforce them?

What would be the point of that?

strategicrankings

03-31-2005, 11:20 PM

I read the post on resource zone and the signature of one of the editors replying read this

3. It can take from a few hours to infinity for a site review to take place.

No comments!

sarumu1

04-01-2005, 12:35 AM

1. They've got their forum rules and they're sticklers about it - nothing wrong with that - they're offering a free service that helps "demystify" why it can take a long time to have a site reviewed.

2. If this blog is to be believed (http://www.rubberstamped.org/blog.html)(entries 1/21, 1/22 and 1/31), this gentleman's directory site was listed by dmoz 8 days after submission, and promptly delisted within 24 hours for supposedly not having enough directory listings. If this in fact occurred, it may be that the editor of the category felt it was unfair that political influence was exerted to expedite review - and if that's true, kudos to the editor... if other sites waiting for review were leapfrogged.

3. Bottom line - they seem a very democratic bunch trying to do things the right way. I just wish there was more of them so things could be done expeditiously.

4. While they seem a very democratic bunch, there is one thing about their review process that irks me greatly: DMOZ editors are allowed to cherry pick - A site submitted 5 days ago may be reviewed over a site that has been waiting 24 months - that is very unfair.

Subbu.

macdesign

04-01-2005, 12:57 AM

But why is that not fair. It's the constant assumption there is a que, and first in the queue gets reviewed first.

Assumming we want to do that how is it done?

In the simple case, I am an editor I have one category, I review in order - no problem.

What If I have a category with five sub-categories, do I review each subcategroy in order, or do I group them all together and review in order as a set. Then another editor gets assigned to one of my subcategories. Do I let that person work that subcategory by himself in order, or do I make sure I edit sites in his subcat, before sites in my subcats that got submitted later.

Put on top of that the problems of running into sites that have issues to be dealt with - the site is not up today, so lets' leave it and do the next one in order, and tomorrow remember to come back to that other one in case it's up.

Then I get another category totally unrelated to the first one, what do I do? Site #1 from Categroy 1, then site #2 in categroy 1 - them jump to site #1 in category 2 - then back to site #3 in cat 1 - the mind boggles at the thought - and I have several hundred categories.

But why should sites be reviewed in order of submission, surely a site that was put up three years ago and submiited today deserves to be reviewed before the one submitted six months ago, but has only been up for 7 months.

Or maybe we should review charitable organizatins before commercial companies since they need the help more.

Or maybe a newly started small business should be reviewed before a personal page, since he needs help getting started so he can feed his family, as opposed to the other site which is just vanity.

Or how about reviewing sites for oddball genetic diseases ahead of those for incompetant web designers, since that helps humanity and keeps the world safe from ugly web sites.

How about we review all sites that are not found in Google ahead of those that are, since it will help them get found, if a site is in Google it's not that important to list in ODP.

If you free your mind - there are many way to choose to review sites - all equally valid. In our system each editor chooses what he thinks is best, it provides motivation, and helps make the system work.

sarumu1

04-01-2005, 01:08 AM

But why should sites be reviewed in order of submission, surely a site that was put up three years ago and submiited today deserves to be reviewed before the one submitted six months ago, but has only been up for 7 months..

sure, if that's true. you cannot honestly tell me that is being done with a straight face - are you actually spending the time to determine the age of a site and decide when it should be reviewed based on how "old" it is and not when it was submitted?

no - because if you are - then you must really be wasting your time instead of using that same amount of time to uhm, perhaps, review the sites submitted.

edited to include this: look - i realize there are lots of confounding factors that determine when the site was placed in a queue, and the several categories that a single editor may be responsible for that will cause "juggling" multiple submissions to ensure that the queue remains uncompromised, within reason - but you can never ever suggest to me that a site that was submitted over three years ago regardless of how "old it is" can justifiably wait to be reviewed before a site that was submitted one month ago. that's just me, and if you seriously feel that way, then let's nip this in the bud and agree to disagree.

here's an interesting thread (http://www.resource-zone.com/forum/showthread.php?t=31571) at the resource zone - that deals with what happened with that directory site.

subbu.

sarumu1

04-01-2005, 01:34 AM

If you free your mind - there are many way to choose to review sites - all equally valid. In our system each editor chooses what he thinks is best, it provides motivation, and helps make the system work.

helps make the system work? again, i don't agree. but i'll agree to disagree with you.

i feel sorry for the poor schmuck who's been waiting 3 years (who will probably be me in about 33 months) because of all the reasons editors may use to "cherry pick" submissions. BTW, all the variations you've listed to help explain your position fall somewhere in the range between facetious and churlish:

charitable organizations before commercial companies... newly started small business before a personal page... sites for oddball genetic diseases over incompetent web designers... google "listed" sites over non google "listed" sites.

edited to include this: please. that's all arbitrary. time of submission cannot be arbitrary. again, you cannot tell me with a straight face that editors use any criteria like the reasons you so condescendingly provided (I originally wrote "jokingly," but you're clearly "talking down" to me) because if you did, your time could be better spent, like, uhm perhaps, just reviewing the sites instead of determining the order that they should be reviewed in - time stamping helps take the thinking out of the equation.

subbu.

by the way, technology is so cool. can you believe that i'm standing in line at an ATM writing this post on my palm and... oh, damn, the guy behind me has less money in his pocket than I've got in mine. he gets to move up ahead of me. i hate it when that happens.

macdesign

04-01-2005, 02:20 AM

[Of course you get to disagree, that's why we post here is it not :p ]

My examples were just hypothetical ideas that in my opinion are perfectly good ways to decide to review sites. I've no idea all the methods that other editors use but here are some real examples:

In general updates get processed ahead of new sites, automatically detected dead sites get removed ahead of everything.

By choosing to apply for a category that is likely to contain non-profit origanizations - that editor has in effect chosen to review non-profit organizations ahead of commercial web sites.

By choosing to search Google for web sites for a category, an editor has decided to review sites that were not submiited ahead over submiited ones within the heap.

By choosing to review sites submitted with well written descriptions and that contain no spelling errors [note that an editor sees the suggested description first - before he actually sees the site] ahead of other sites, an editor has increased the chances that the reviewed site was prepared with equal care.

By choosing to skip over categories that are prone to be filled with spam, such as hotel booking, car rentals, which take an inordinate amount of time to review, an editor can spend his time more efficiently reviewing other sites.

When working in a regional area, an editor who chooses to work on a city that has few sites listed does more for the inhabitants of that city, than adding more sites to a city that already has hundreds of listings.

When choosing to skip over a site that has been submitted multiple times in multiple categories, an editor has decreased the chances of accepting a site that may be prone to other problems and should not be listed.

My method is to use a combination of techniques, that will differ depending on the category. But in fact a lot does have to do with efficiency, when dealing with categories with a lot of unreviewed - it is often best to review aseveral sites in the category one after another. And sometimes in fact I will in fact decide to go through a showl section in date order just to try and deal with sites that have been sitting around for a while.
----

Although the real world [ODP is not the real world] does function in many cases on first in first out queues,it does not work exclusively that way. Why does a supermarket have a line up for those buying 1-8 items, does that not discriminate in an arbitrary fashion? Why does my bank decide at times to serve people who are making deposits ahead of those who want to take out money? Why does the person with lots of money get served ahead of everyone? When I am waiting to be served at the bakery, why does the customer who phones in an order get served ahead of me? And why do I, because I can use an ATM, get my money out faster than the 70 year old lady who has not idea what to do with an ATM and has to stand in line to be served?

sarumu1

04-01-2005, 02:28 AM

Your "real" examples are great and make sense. In the end, to me, they still do a poor job of explaining why the poor schmuck who's been waiting three years may have watched several others see their sites reviewed ahead of his.

It would have been collegial of you to have included those reasons in your original reply.

Subbu.

kctipton

04-02-2005, 11:25 PM

explaining why the poor schmuck who's been waiting three years may have watched several others see their sites reviewed ahead of his.

Answer: there's no FIFO system in place, but people wrongly believe there is.

sarumu1

04-03-2005, 12:05 PM

there's no FIFO system in place, but people wrongly believe there is

actually no. people are well aware that there isn't a first in, first out system - hence my personal angst for:

the poor schmuck who's been waiting three years may have watched several others see their sites reviewed ahead of his.

if there was any kind of FIFO system in place, that poor schmuck wouldn't exist. it was my contention that a time-stamped submission process would be the easiest to use.

note that this is my only "complaint" with dmoz, if you can call it that (see post no. 75, this thread). i appreciate everything that volunteer editors and moderators do for the web in any site/ category, and depending on the topic i'm looking to find information for, i often use your service first before doing web searches.

regards, subbu.

Marcia

04-03-2005, 01:24 PM

I see nothing wrong with this thread at all

http://resource-zone.com/forum/showthread.php?t=24493

When 6 months elapsed (not before) he was informed that it's still waiting for review - which tells that it hasn't been rejected.

meechp123

04-04-2005, 05:33 PM

Marcia,

I understand that DMOZ has rules and all that jazz; what I can't understand is why put people through such a long waiting period? This person has content (hell, if anyone can determine what content is deemed relevant, I can call this site relevant--I'm saying this because although I'm not an editor, I am a power surfer--it's kind of like being a movie critic...aren't we all movie critics? ) that's worthy and should meet DOS’s standards; yet, they have to wait for hear an answer. Come on, you're telling me that this company might have to wait 6 more months just to be placed in DOS’s coveted directory?

I say conveted because there is something to be said about being placed in DMOZ, I believe that it says that "this site has been viewed by human eyes, therefore, the content of this site golden". Yet, I see sites listed that are full of SEO tricks (blind text and all those other gimmicks to gain popularity--when I find one, I'll post it).

Give us some hope that DMOZ isn't just going to put our site in some infinite queue. Give those who are making valid attempts to make the web a better place some type of incentive for creating helpful content. Isn't that what Google is all about? Isn't that what Tim Berners-Lee and the folks at W3C envisioned?

:D

sarumu1

04-04-2005, 08:33 PM

I can't understand is why put people through such a long waiting period?
There's no other option. They're sooooooo understaffed, and they want to maintain quality. The "give" has been the review time - and the fallout of that has been that certain sections of the directory are not "up to date." I believe they maintain very strict standards for approval of editors, and this should be applauded.

Bottomline: Submit your site and then forget about DMOZ for awhile. Work on getting links with good anchor text, building content and getting it into other directories.

I say conveted because there is something to be said about being placed in DMOZ, I believe that it says that "this site has been viewed by human eyes, therefore, the content of this site golden". Yet, I see sites listed that are full of SEO tricks (blind text and all those other gimmicks to gain popularity--when I find one, I'll post it).

I completely agree - there's something to be said for anything reviewed by "human" eyes on the internet. Let's be honest though - if you find sites submitted and published by DMOZ that are replete with SEO tricks - that's not DMOZ's concern. Their end user is not the site owner - it's the surfer who's looking for quality content - as long as the "tricks" aren't interfering with the content, I suppose DMOZ could care less - and rightfully so.

Give those who are making valid attempts to make the web a better place some type of incentive for creating helpful content.
I would say just keep writing great content and getting it out there. Waiting at DMOZ shouldn't be an end-all and certainly not getting listed by DMOZ shouldn't be an end-all.

[quote]Google?[/google]
They be big business now, mon. Seriously. They emphasized clean functionality when they first came out - unfortunately they've been getting more cluttered as they inch towards portalization.

Regards, Subbu - Fellow dude who's submitted a site to DMOZ and hasn't heard back. It's only been three months, and the scope of my site has expanded by leaps and I'm actually not resubmitting it with the updated info for fear of losing my place in the pile... even though it's very clear that they don't review sites by time-stamping. I'm not sure, but I don't think they like that - in fact I've asked them and they don't seem to want to answer that question... unless they've "overlooked" it. I'll soon find out - I just *bumped* it back up at the resource-zone.

cbp

04-04-2005, 10:05 PM

They're sooooooo understaffed,
I would put it the other way round - the current editors are overwhelmed with:
* spam submissions
* deeplink submissions
* duplicate submissions
* unlistable sites
* submission to wrong categories (have to find correct one and move site)
* submissions with non-guideline compliant titles and descriptions (it takes more time to rewrite)
* etc

I recall a senior editor stating that the entire pool of submitted sites could be sorted in a matter of weeks, if, somehow by magic, all of those spam, deeplink, duplicate, wrong category and non-guideline compliant descriptions all disappeared overnight.
Yet, I see sites listed that are full of SEO tricks (blind text and all those other gimmicks to gain popularity- What is wrong with that? DMOZ is not the internet police. DMOZ lists sites that have unique content that adds value to the category - it does not and should not care about things like gimmicks for popularity, hidden text etc.

macdesign

04-05-2005, 01:10 AM

Personally if I were runnning ODP [probably just as well I'm not] - there would be penalties for sloppy submission.

I just moved another incorrect submission from a category which clearly has a specific note warning that certain types of sites are not allowed there, and that message appears on the submission form - where it is totally ignored.

That category - 90% of the submssions are misplaced, so I do my duty and move it to the correct category.

(Now in some places it is not clear what is the correct category, and I expect there will be misplaced sites.)

In another area I edit - 40% of the submissions are misplaced and there is absolutley no reason for that other than laziness. What should happen in these cases, is that the submission is dumped, an email sent to the submitter and a block put in place preventing the resubmission of that site for several weeks, of course it would have to be inteligent enough to prevent competitors blocking sites. Combine that with blocks for multiple submissions and submissions to multiple categories and that would soon clear out the junk and increase the quality of new submissions.

I'm spending at least half my time editing dealing with this. After a while it gets frustrating and I think it leads to editor burnout.

Asking politely simply does not work - I had someone routinely submitting his site to multiple categories. I asked him several times to stop and he ignored me, I warned him he could lose his existing listing and he ignored me. I removed his listing for two weeks and the message got across - I never got any more spam.

St0n3y

04-05-2005, 12:54 PM

I would put it the other way round - the current editors are overwhelmed with:
* spam submissions
* deeplink submissions
* duplicate submissions
* unlistable sites
* submission to wrong categories (have to find correct one and move site)
* submissions with non-guideline compliant titles and descriptions (it takes more time to rewrite)
* etc

If duplicate submissions, well that CAN be *magically* taken care of. Many of the directories will let you know if your site is already included if you try to submit it a second time. As for wrong categories, heck, just have a pre-canned message that goes back to the submitter letting them know that the submission has been rejected because it was placed in the wrong category. The editor should not have to fix that and the email will let the submitter know they need to try again.

Wow, two *magic* fixes, just like that.

In fact, a simple email back to the submitter, would eliminate many of the so-called problems the editors face with all the sites to sort through.

macdesign

04-05-2005, 01:39 PM

The dilema is that the function of ODP is to serve the users - that is the searchers [not the webmasters]. Everytime we block someone, we reduce the chances of listing what might be a valuable site to the searchers. So punishing the submitter - punishes the end user - and that philosophy is to some extent the reason blocks are not in place - except in the case of seriously bad spammers.

My personal feeling is that we should lower the boundaries and that the sloppy submitter is just as much a problem as the serious spammer.

As far as non-compliant descriptions - if we refused them, we would not list any sites. Estimates vary - but one can assume that only one out of a thousand sites is submitted with an acceptable description.

St0n3y

04-05-2005, 01:54 PM

My personal feeling is that we should lower the boundaries and that the sloppy submitter is just as much a problem as the serious spammer.

That solution is lose-lose for everybody. You cannot treat spammers and bad submitters the same. To paraphrase your own comment:

Everytime we [treat a sloppy submitter as a spammer], we reduce the chances of listing what might be a valuable site to the searchers.

macdesign

04-05-2005, 02:40 PM

As I said previously If I were running ODP [probably just as well I'm not] :D

I also believe that drunk drivers should be hung at the side of the road. [Probably why I'll never be a meta editor] :mad:

But I also follow the ODP guidelines [even when I do not agree with them] - so misplaced sites, sites without descriptions, sites with misspelled URL's, sites in the wrong language, and multiply submitted sites - none of them get deleted - which is why I'm a very good editor ;)

meechp123

04-05-2005, 04:23 PM

Well, how can DMOZ claim that they're trying to provide the best content for the user if anyone can submit their site? Sites with SEO tricks get banned from Google (if they catch violators); why shouldn't DMOZ do the same. By enforcing some strict guidelines (no tricks, title tags, submitting to the correct category, etc), the editors wouldn't have to sort through the tons of sites that do not follow those rules. Now, I don’t know how they would go about setting up that process (develop something like the W3C validate?), but, this would truly provide web users with quality content.

They want to make the web a better place and all that jazz, yet, they let anyone in.....come on, how does that make sense?

Quote from DMOZ:
The web continues to grow at staggering rates. Automated search engines are increasingly unable to turn up useful results to search queries. The small paid editorial staffs at commercial directory sites can't keep up with submissions, and the quality and comprehensiveness of their directories has suffered. Link rot is setting in and they can't keep pace with the growth of the Internet.

Instead of fighting the explosive growth of the Internet, the Open Directory provides the means for the Internet to organize itself. As the Internet grows, so do the number of net-citizens. These citizens can each organize a small portion of the web and present it back to the rest of the population, culling out the bad and useless and keeping only the best content.

Looks like they're not following their own standards.

sarumu1

04-05-2005, 04:30 PM

if anyone can submit their site? Sites with SEO tricks get banned from Google (if they catch violators)

if there is good content on the site, then the site "gets in." plain and simple. of course, the site has to actually be reviewed first, but DMOZ doesn't care about seo tricks.

meechp123, the flaw in your logic: sites that use "seo tricks" and sites that contain good content are NOT mutually exclusive.

subbu.

meechp123

04-05-2005, 04:53 PM

meechp123, the flaw in your logic: sites that use "seo tricks" and sites that contain good content are NOT mutually exclusive.

Ok buddy, here is Google's guidelines for submission (I'm including this because I think we all know that Google is THE search engine and Google pulls from DMOZ)

* Avoid hidden text or hidden links.
* Don't employ cloaking or sneaky redirects.
* Don't send automated queries to Google.
* Don't load pages with irrelevant words.
* Don't create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.
* Avoid "doorway" pages created just for search engines, or other "cookie cutter" approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content.

These quality guidelines cover the most common forms of deceptive or manipulative behavior, but Google may respond negatively to other misleading practices not listed here, (e.g. tricking users by registering misspellings of well-known web sites). It's not safe to assume that just because a specific deceptive technique isn't included on this page, Google approves of it. Webmasters who spend their energies upholding the spirit of the basic principles listed above will provide a much better user experience and subsequently enjoy better ranking than those who spend their time looking for loopholes they can exploit.

Now, here's some logic for ya; if Google pulls from DMOZ and Google doesn't approve of your beloved SEO tricks, why in the world would DMOZ allow sites that do not comply with Google? Can DMOZ survive without Google? My point is that DMOZ has issues with taking a long time with accepting QUALITY websites, they can eliminate those issues by being on the same page as Google and elminate those problems at the door.

sarumu1

04-05-2005, 05:06 PM

Now, here's some logic for ya; if Google pulls from DMOZ and Google doesn't approve of your beloved SEO tricks, why in the world would DMOZ allow sites that do not comply with Google?

I answered it before, I guess you just didn't see it. Why would DMOZ not allow sites that don't comply with google? Because, maybe, the site actually may contain good content for the end-user who visits DMOZ.

So, ahem, since we're buddies, I suppose you'll take this in a chummy sort of way - I'm certainly not attempting to be antagonistic:

Here's another wrong assumption on your part: You're assuming that DMOZ and google are partners. They're not. Google uses ODP data *at their own risk* for lack of a better phrase.

DMOZ allows anyone to "pull" from them. Google pulled information from them when they were building their own directory. Google doesn not "pull" from DMOZ for their search results. If you believe that they do, then that's another poor assumption on your part.

BTW: Recently, Google has stepped away from promoting their own directory - in fact, they've done everything short of disavowing their directory.

S.

risk

04-06-2005, 01:12 PM

if there was any kind of FIFO system in place, that poor schmuck wouldn't exist. it was my contention that a time-stamped submission process would be the easiest to use.

i think a good compromise would be deciding how long is 'too long' (either globally, per category or leave it up to the editor) and bump submissions which are older than that to the front of your arbitrary queue. as a software engineer, i can tell you that this makes perfect sense to me because that's how a soft realtime scheduling algorithm implemented with priorities works ;]

-rsk

sarumu1

04-06-2005, 03:04 PM

I can't see DMOZ editors unhappy with that as a solution - but I think they may have difficulty implementing it. I've heard via numerous posts that AOL doesn't give them much money for upkeep - especially when people complain about the search function - If that is to be believed, then I don't see AOL giving DMOZ money to implement this.

It would be nice to see if any DMOZ editors actually subscribe to your suggestion as a potential solution. Perhaps... if enough of them lobby for it, then who knows?

And my beloved Cubs will win the World Series...

Subbu.

cbp

04-06-2005, 09:01 PM

i think a good compromise would be deciding how long is 'too long' The best sites that are in the category's that I edit were never submitted - how long should they wait? A DMOZ editor's role is to build a category of valuable resources. The concept of "waiting" is based on the concept that DMOZ is a listing service (its not) and that editors are there to process the submisions (they are not). A lot of other directries provide that service (why should DMOZ?). A DMOZ editor will use many sources to find new sites. They are under no obligation to even look at the submitted sites - they are under an obligation to build a category of unique and valuable resources.

sarumu1

04-06-2005, 11:28 PM

The best sites that are in the (categories) that I edit were never submitted - how long should they wait?

obviously that's a rhetorical question that was posed to elicit thought... right?

A DMOZ editor's role is to build a category of valuable resources.

I would think so - in fact, I would demand so, if I used DMOZ as a starting point to research topics (and I do).

The concept of "waiting" is based on the concept that DMOZ is a listing service (its not)...

That's debatable. I suppose you could imagine a continuum - a link farm on one end and a super-selective directory on the other. Both "list" resources - it's just likely that the listings in the super-selective directories have a higher probability of being useful.

A lot of other directories provide that service (why should DMOZ?). A DMOZ editor will use many sources to find new sites.
...and that editors are there to process the submisions (they are not)... A DMOZ editor will use many sources to find new sites. They are under no obligation to even look at the submitted sites - they are under an obligation to build a category of unique and valuable resources.

Sorry for being irreverential, but some of those statements smack of being short-sighted... And if I said some of those things, I would wish that I hadn't and could take them back.

Here's why: I challenge you to tell me why does DMOZ have a submission form? If you really feel that DMOZ editors are under no obligation to look at submissions, then make a motion to have the submission form removed immediately. While the "best" sites in your particular category may not have been submitted, the fact that DMOZ actually has a submission form suggests that submissions have turned out to be a significant percentage of sites that make the directory.

It is absolutely implicit that an editor who wants "to build a category of unique and valuable resources" explore all possible sources. In fact, your statement: "under no obligation to look at submitted sites" just smacks of someone who is doing just the opposite of "trying to build a category of unique and valuable resources." Is it so inconceivable to think that a webmaster may feel his or her site may have valuable content and that they would follow the link to the form "to suggest a site to DMOZ" to present that category's editor with information about a potential site that may be useful to DMOZ's end-user?

What's even scarier... what if it's not a site-owner or webmaster who filled out the submission form... what if it's the person who is actually using your site - the very one who you claim to have in mind while you "build a category of unique and valuable resources." I've been told by DMOZ editors whom I respect that they often receive submissions from citizens of the net who have no vested interest in the sites they are submitting simply because they want to do their part to help organize the web and to let others know about really cool sites that could be useful.

But, hell, if you're under "no obligation" to look at the submitted sites, then just zap the submission page, and do away with the resource-zone.

The truth must be that submissions are an important source of what gets listed, besides surfing the net and word of mouth and whatever else helps you build your categories.

On a personal note CBP, I certainly hope that you're looking at the submissions in your category, even if they aren't turning out to be the "best" ones, because if you're not, then in my humble opinion, you're doing a disservice to the DMOZ visitors who end up in your category, a category that would be tantamount to nothing more than a personal fiefdom and certainly not "a category of unique and valuable resources."

S.

risk

04-07-2005, 01:18 AM

please don't take this the wrong way - i appreciate the work editors do and have no gripes with anything (i haven't submitted sites to odp yet).

The best sites that are in the category's that I edit were never submitted - how long should they wait? A DMOZ editor's role is to build a category of valuable resources. The concept of "waiting" is based on the concept that DMOZ is a listing service (its not) and that editors are there to process the submisions (they are not).

no, your line of reasoning is borked. while "dmoz is not a listing service" may be true, it does *not* follow that the concept of waiting is based on the assumption that dmoz is a listing service.

dmoz asks for site suggestions. think about it - dmoz asks folks for help finding sites to list. when someone asks for my help and then goes 'nyah nyah nyah, you suck!' i tend to consider that rude. yes, you folks have to deal with spammers, morons who don't read submission guidelines etc, but what can decent webmasters do about that? sure, a webmaster submitting her own sites gets something out of it, but there's a reason why ad hominem arguments are unacceptable in a debate. regardless of motivation, if the argument (in this case a site) is valid (in this case worthy of listing) the motivation for submitting it is irrelevant.

in essence, you fine folks are building a directory so people can find good content which is useful to them. that content is produced by webmasters. these are the stakeholders involved and the fact that webmasters will still be involved even if you treat them like dirt because they've got an overriding self-interest in being listed is not a valid reason to treat them badly.

as a case in point, let's refer to why no rejection notifications or explanations are sent to submitters. the argument that providing feedback to spammers will just encourage them to spam the odp more and possibly improve their chances of getting listed makes perfect sense to me. however, does it make sense to punish all those who've taken the time to review the guidelines and did their best to submit their site properly for the actions of unscrupulous dimwits they've got no control over?

A lot of other directries provide that service (why should DMOZ?). A DMOZ editor will use many sources to find new sites. They are under no obligation to even look at the submitted sites - they are under an obligation to build a category of unique and valuable resources.

volunteers are under no obligation to do anything, which is why they're 'volunteers'. their *goal* is building a category of unique and valuable resources. it is polite and in my book morally right (i am a utilitarian - incrasing the happiness of all parties involved in a social contract and all that) to treat people who may be helping you well.

let's use an analogy: let's say you're a social services worker whose job it is to help people who are down and out, ie assigning welfare and housing assistance etc. your goal as a government employee is to make sure the society is able to help people in need. unfortunately, a large proportion of people applying for assistance are just trying to game the system. even those who are sincerely in need of assistance have an overriding self-interest to receive said assistance. those who need assistance the most, eg the homeless, may never ecen come to apply and you might need to seek them out yourself. would you treat all applicants with nonchalance and contempt in this situation?

once again, i'm not trying to knock the work you guys do - it is much appreciated. i'm not knocking odp either - god knows it's *hard* to do what you folks do well, keep everyone happy and do it all for a whopping $0.00. i'm just presenting arguments that make sense to me and hope you can approach them with an open mind. i'm not expecting anything to change - that is not my goal at all; all i'm hoping for is an intelligent discussion.

-rsk

cbp

04-07-2005, 01:52 AM

I challenge you to tell me why does DMOZ have a submission form? So, the editor can use it as one of the possible sources to find sites to consider listing

I list more sites from going out and looking for them, than from what is submitted. A while back I could edit in a new category - ~80 sites waiting. I went through them all in 3 hours on a Sunday AM - ended up listing 2 of them (and had to rewrite their descriptions) - for the next 10 minutes, I found 3 really good sites for the category looking at Google. Guess where I am better spending my time if I want to build up a category? Submitted sites are just one of the many sources (probably the most inefficient source of new site)
I certainly hope that you're looking at the submissions in your category, even if they aren't turning out to be the "best" ones I do, but get more and better sites from the Google alerts I have set up.

sarumu1

04-07-2005, 02:16 AM

They are under no obligation to even look at the submitted sites - they are under an obligation to build a category of unique and valuable resources

so then while your guidelines do not "obligate" you to go through submissions, it in fact appears to be a necessary component of your duties - as you have attested to so doing, regardless of the yield. Only an editor who did not understand their duties would assume that they were "under no obligation to even look at the submitted sites," even if DMOZ does not clearly make that a requirement.

the above quoted statement that you posted earlier today derailed my faith in DMOZ editors, and the fact that you apparently do feel obligated to look at submitted sites comforts me and renews my enthusiasm for the DMOZ directory.

s.

sarumu1

04-07-2005, 07:14 PM

Time to entry for my submission in DMOZ: 5 months to the day.

Yes - it was submitted, and I'm glad the editor reviewed the submission. The description was as I had provided, save for a minor edit to reflect the expanded scope of my site since the submission in early December.

My site brings the count to 21 in a fairly quiet area of the directory that has an editor who is responsible for the editing of at least 4 other categories.

It will be very interesting to watch my logs and see how many visitors I receive from DMOZ...

S.

donaldb

04-09-2005, 10:35 AM

I think that part of the problem here is this issue of the ODP being a service for people to use to get their web site listed. It's truly a matter of perception.

When I sit down to edit, I'm looking to see what web sites I can add to the directory that are going to be interesting and/or beneficial to the person who uses the ODP or one of it's downstream data partners as a source of information. After all, I'm looking at this from the perspective of someone who is trying to build a directory. I realize that not too many people are going to use the ODP site to look for information, but that's fine with me.

I also do appreciate it when people make suggestions to the directory that help me to build it, but they are only suggestions (the link at the top of the page says "Suggest URL", not "Submit URL"). My primary goal when I sit here and edit is not to see how many sites are sitting in some unreviewed pile and plod through those one at a time. I might do a quick scan of that pile and see if anything jumps out at me because the title and description was well written in accordance with the instructions, but it's usually not where I start. If someone doesn't take the time to suggest a URL in the way that we have asked them to do, then I figure it's usually not worth my time to add the site to the directory. The suggestion form even states that the ODP is under no obligation to add the site to the directory. And if the site is worth adding it'll usually pop up on my radar elsewhere in my search for worthwhile sites to add.

So the moral of the story here is that people really, really need to stop seeing the ODP as a listing service. It's a directory being built by people who want to build a web directory. Yes there are some editors who may be doing it for nefarious reasons, and they should be reported through the abuse reporting system. But for the most part we're just a community of people who are building a directory to maybe help a few people here and there to find some information. Yes, the ODP might have some influence on how your web site is sorted, handled, manipulated, or mangled by Google, but it's really not something that I'm concerned with. If in some small way I'm helping Google's users to find information, then that's a nice side effect of the process, but it has nothing to do with my mission as an editor.

PhilC

04-10-2005, 06:20 AM

Hi Don - long time and all that :)

Whilst I agree that DMOZ is under no obligation to even look at the suggested sites, it is clear that the people at DMOZ really do want them to be dealt with, and those editors who don't see their unreviewed list as being a priority are letting the side down. I base that statement on the fact the Greenbusters were instituted. They are (or were) instituted in order to reduce the massive backlog of unreviewed sites.

I offer the following logic - and I'm using the generic "you":-

The difference between an editor going out and finding new sites, and reviewing the "suggested" ones, is that the new sites that are found come without pre-written Titles and Descriptions. There is no other difference. I.e. there is nothing to suggest that the found sites are any better for the directory than the suggested ones. What does it matter if the suggested Titles and Descriptions are not written according to the guidelines? If you are so keen on adding new sites, pretend that the suggested Titles and Descriptions don't exist and write them - just as if you'd found a new site by yourself.

I know from experience that many of the suggested sites are effectively spam, and even the thought of the unreviewed list may be frustrating, but it's both illogical and unkind to put all the suggested sites on the back burner and make it the priority to go out to find others. It doesn't make any sense from the directory's point of view, and it certainly unnecessarily frustrates people.

When you invite people to suggest a site, you ask them to spend time doing a little research - find the correct category as best as their inexperience can, read the general guidelines, read the catgeories guidelines, and fill the form with an acceptable Title and Description. That all takes time. You have invited people to use their time for your benefit as well as theirs, and now you tell them that maybe you won't even do them the courtesy of looking at it, but you'll go out looking for other sites instead? That's what's coming across in this thread.

It doesn't make sense to go out looking for sites, when there are some in unreviewed.

donaldb

04-10-2005, 10:37 AM

Whilst I agree that DMOZ is under no obligation to even look at the suggested sites, it is clear that the people at DMOZ really do want them to be dealt with, and those editors who don't see their unreviewed list as being a priority are letting the side down. I base that statement on the fact the Greenbusters were instituted. They are (or were) instituted in order to reduce the massive backlog of unreviewed sites.
Some editors might find processing the listings in the unreviewed pile a priority, but I was only talking about my experience as an editor. Are you sure about your theory as to why the Greenbusters permission was instituted? Maybe it was only instituted to give the newer editors a way to practise editing so that they would later have the required skills to apply for bigger categories. Maybe it was instituted so that editors who were bored would have something to do without having to go through the whole process of applying for a new category. All I'm saying is that I wouldn't assume that the reason that permission was created was because someone was overly concerned about the unreviewed piles being processed.

The difference between an editor going out and finding new sites, and reviewing the "suggested" ones, is that the new sites that are found come without pre-written Titles and Descriptions. There is no other difference. I.e. there is nothing to suggest that the found sites are any better for the directory than the suggested ones. What does it matter if the suggested Titles and Descriptions are not written according to the guidelines? If you are so keen on adding new sites, pretend that the suggested Titles and Descriptions don't exist and write them - just as if you'd found a new site by yourself.
I should have been more clear with my statement. When I do a quick scan of the unreviewed pile I look to see if anything jumps out at me. Sometime a listing will jump out at me because the title and description are well written. Sometimes a listing will jump out because the title or description is intriguing and it's something I decide to check out. Sometimes a listing will jump out at me because it's a URL I'm familiar with because I edit this particular category and I also have some subject knowledge in this area. There are any number of reasons why a listing might jump out at me from the unreviewed pile and will make me want to add it. The converse is also true in many cases. I can do a quick scan of the pile and a bunch of sites will jump out at me that I recognize as junk and I can usually check out quickly and delete from the pile.

I know from experience that many of the suggested sites are effectively spam, and even the thought of the unreviewed list may be frustrating, but it's both illogical and unkind to put all the suggested sites on the back burner and make it the priority to go out to find others. It doesn't make any sense from the directory's point of view, and it certainly unnecessarily frustrates people.
Unkind to who? Frustrates who? The downstream users? They don't know that I might have ignored some listings in the pile. If you mean that it's unkind to the people who have made the suggestions, then they should know from filling out the form that I was never under any obligation to add their suggestion to the directory.

When you invite people to suggest a site, you ask them to spend time doing a little research - find the correct category as best as their inexperience can, read the general guidelines, read the categories guidelines, and fill the form with an acceptable Title and Description. That all takes time. You have invited people to use their time for your benefit as well as theirs, and now you tell them that maybe you won't even do them the courtesy of looking at it, but you'll go out looking for other sites instead? That's what's coming across in this thread.

It doesn't make sense to go out looking for sites, when there are some in unreviewed.
I don't know that we go out of our way to "invite" people to suggest a site. We give people the opportunity to suggest a site, but I think we try to make it clear that we are not taking submissions the way other directories ask people to submit their sites. The false importance of an ODP listing is something that is promoted in forums such as this one, but you don't see the ODP going out and running banner ads to invite suggestions :) I guess you could say that the attribution that we require downstream directories to use is a form of advertising, but that's a bit of a stretch.

In my mind even though I know the majority of sites are submitted by their owners or someone who is somehow related to the site, I can't always assume that's the case. If Joe Blow the helpful internet surfer decides to suggest a bunch of sites to a category that he has an interest in, I don't imagine that he cares one bit whether we eventually add the sites or not. He was just being helpful and I appreciate his help. I know it's not the case, but wouldn't it be nice it that was the only reason that people helped us build the directory? Unfortunately in some areas of the directory the only reason people suggest a site is because of this back door connection to Google. If that connection didn't exist we wouldn't be having this conversation :)

Remember that I was only talking about my experiences as an editor. I generally try not to assume that I know why other editors do things the way that they do. Some editors are probably fanatical about the number of listings that are waiting to be reviewed. I know that I was once like that when I started, but as my permission levels went up I quickly realized that it was going to be hard for me to stay fanatical about it. Other editors are just in it for their own little agenda. They want to try to make sure that their own site is getting some kind of preferential treatment. We all know how that usually works out. Those editors don't like it when someone discovers what they're up to and they get booted and go on a rampage telling the world how evil the meta editors are and that they were just trying to feed their hungry kids and buy medicine for their sick grandmother :) Every editor is going to have a different experience and is going to do things differently.

Basically, if you are someone who is relying on the ODP to give you something for helping us build the directory, then I think that you are generally going to be disappointed when we don't give you what you wanted.

sarumu1

04-10-2005, 11:15 AM

I'll be honest - this notion of DMOZ being *confused* as a listing service does hold some water. In the end, while DMOZ is not a listing service to the well-trained eye, it does present (="list") sites that are "unique" and all that jazz. In my opinion, being confused for a listing service is something that DMOZ will have to deal with for as long as it exists - because that is what DMOZ does: it lists sites.

Unfortunately, DMOZ will never be able to easily separate itself from it's non-selective brethren. The unfortunate fools who feel their "livelihood" "depends" on a listing are the ones who are attempting to prostitute and reduce DMOZ to a "listing service."

Who are these fools chasing fool's gold? We are all aware of the numerous threads in forums here and there that starts off with an angst-ridden submitter - er, suggester - vexing DMOZ, invariably getting increasingly heated and then exploding - with the subsequent disaster clean up crew working entirely on the submitter's end - the DMOZ editors who respond are almost always calm and collected. I find great humor in such threads. I once read one of these poor souls describe the actions of the DMOZ editors as equivalent to stealing food from the plates of their children. No where else do things get blown out of proportion.

S.

sarumu1

04-10-2005, 11:32 AM

Unkind to who? Frustrates who? The downstream users? They don't know that I might have ignored some listings in the pile. If you mean that it's unkind to the people who have made the suggestions, then they should know from filling out the form that I was never under any obligation to add their suggestion to the directory.

I think Phil C is suggesting (suggesting, not submitting :) ) that if you have a form for suggested sites, then it is unfair to the person taking the time to fill the form out if the suggestion itself *may not be* reviewed.

You may not be actively soliciting suggestions, but if you have a form that allows them to be submitted you had better be reading those that are, in my humble opinion. If I didn't have a vested interest in suggesting a site (I'm being honest) and I was a suggestion that I have nothing to do with - I certainly wouldn't take my time to fill out the form if I knew it may not be read. And if I did fill out the form, and then found out later that it may not be read, then I would be...

frustrated.

S.

PhilC

04-10-2005, 11:32 AM

Whilst I wasn't a party to the reasoning for the Greenbusters, it was always my understanding that it was instituted for the purpose of tackling the backlog. I never saw it talked about in any way other than that, and, since you haven't indicated that it was instituted for anything else, I'll assume that my understanding is correct.

But there's more than just the Greenbusters to indicate that DMOZ wants the unreviewed to be dealt with. For a long time, there have been requests for help in reducing the number of unreviewed in a great many categories. Generally speaking, DMOZ wants to review the unreviewed and, as far as I can tell, people who treat the unreviewed as unimportant are letting the side down. Of course, attitudes may have changed in recent times.

I did say that I was using the generic "you", Don. My comments were not directed only at you. cbp also said that he considers the unreviewed to be low priority, but I used the word "you" to mean DMOZ and the editors in general.

I should have been more clear with my statement. When I do a quick scan of the unreviewed pile I look to see if anything jumps out at me. Sometime a listing will jump out at me because the title and description are well written. Sometimes a listing will jump out because the title or description is intriguing and it's something I decide to check out. Sometimes a listing will jump out at me because it's a URL I'm familiar with because I edit this particular category and I also have some subject knowledge in this area. There are any number of reasons why a listing might jump out at me from the unreviewed pile and will make me want to add it. The converse is also true in many cases. I can do a quick scan of the pile and a bunch of sites will jump out at me that I recognize as junk and I can usually check out quickly and delete from the pile.The second part is fine. It's the first part that I think is not only wrong for the side (DMOZ), but is discourteous to those who have spent time in accepting the DMOZ invitation to suggest sites.

Unkind to who? Frustrates who? The downstream users? They don't know that I might have ignored some listings in the pile. If you mean that it's unkind to the people who have made the suggestions, then they should know from filling out the form that I was never under any obligation to add their suggestion to the directory.I was refering to those people who have spent time in taking up your invitation to suggest sites. The least that editors can do is review them. I did not suggest that the sites must be added to the directory, but they should be shown the courtesy of being reviewed, and not put on the back burner whilst the editor goes off to find other sites instead, or ignored because they didn't jump out at the editor.

I don't know that we go out of our way to "invite" people to suggest a site.It is true that you don't run ad campaigns, but you do invite people to suggest a site on almost every page of the DMOZ directory. If the suggestions may be ignored, I think the directory should say so. I'm not aware of anywhere in the site that even hints that the submissions may be ignored.

I agree with you that the "importance" that some people still attach to being listed in DMOZ is false. It is not important at all, but it is very useful just the same. It provides 2 good links (one from DMOZ and the other from Google), plus a myriad of links from small sites that use the DMOZ data. So a listing is very worthwhile, though not important.

Basically, if you are someone who is relying on the ODP to give you something for helping us build the directory, then I think that you are generally going to be disappointed when we don't give you what you wanted.I'm sure that that was the generic "you", and not addressed to me personally. I didn't suggest that DMOZ gives a reward for helping to build the directory - the reward being a listing. I'm saying that it is very discourteous to those people who have accepted the invitation and have spent time submitting a site, for editors to just ignore them in favour of finding other sites themselves. Not only is it unnecessarily discourteous and frustrating for the submitter, but it doesn't make any sense from DMOZ's point of view, as I explained earlier.

donaldb

04-11-2005, 11:01 AM

Generally speaking, DMOZ wants to review the unreviewed and, as far as I can tell, people who treat the unreviewed as unimportant are letting the side down. Of course, attitudes may have changed in recent times.
Generally speaking I think that most editors are probably interested in reducing the number of unreviewed in the categories that they edit, but I think it's unfair to say that editors are somehow letting their side down if they aren't processing unreviewed before doing other things. I would actually like to get rid of all of the unreviewed listings in the categories where I am the named editor. Unfortunately, there are always other things that need to be done and I end up having to be prioritize the editing activities that I can accomplish in a day. I would imagine that other editors have similar issues.

It is true that you don't run ad campaigns, but you do invite people to suggest a site on almost every page of the DMOZ directory. If the suggestions may be ignored, I think the directory should say so. I'm not aware of anywhere in the site that even hints that the submissions may be ignored.
Every suggestion form actually does include the text "Please note: We are not a search engine and pride ourselves on being highly selective. We don't accept all sites, so please don't take it personally should your site not be accepted."

I certainly understand where you're coming from on this, but I can't agree with you that the unreviewed piles need to be given priority over any other method that an editor has for ferreting out sites to add to the directory. I also think that it's always going to be different situation is different parts of the directory. Editors in spam prone areas are not going to have the same experience as editors in smaller Regional locality categories (though you can't imagine the crap that is suggested from outside in Regional/Polar_Regions - it's bizarre).

I suspect that we're not going to come to an agreement on this issue. I've just never looked at the ODP as a directory that accepts submissions the way that other directories do. To me it's still community of people who are interested in cataloguing web sites into a big directory, and nothing else. I know that other people see it differently, and I can live with that :)

PhilC

04-11-2005, 12:39 PM

I think you're right about most editors wanting to get their unrevieweds down, Don, and, for the reasons that I've mentioned, I'm sure I'm right that DMOZ as a whole would also like it. I just find it a bit disappointing when editors state words to the effect that the submitted sites take a back seat to going out and finding other sites. You may say that, as an outsider, it's not my business, so there's no reason to be disappointed, and you'd be right. But, rightly or wrongly, DMOZ has acquired a certain status amongst website owners, and ignoring submissions just because you (the generic "you") are under no obligation to review them, strikes me as being a bit heartless.

Every suggestion form actually does include the text "Please note: We are not a search engine and pride ourselves on being highly selective. We don't accept all sites, so please don't take it personally should your site not be accepted."That's not the same thing. We aren't talking about whether a site is accepted or not. We are discussing whether the submission is ignored or not.

sarumu1

04-11-2005, 01:09 PM

Hi Phil.

Phil C:That's not the same thing. We aren't talking about whether a site is accepted or not. We are discussing whether the submission is ignored or not.

I was going to point that out too. You both seem to be talking about something different.

Submissions submitted via the DMOZ form should be reviewed - regardless of whether a site is accepted into the directory or not. If they *may not* be reviewed, perhaps DMOZ would be kind enough to write "Not only may we not accept your site, but we may not even read the submission form that you used to ask us to review the site in question," when they state:

Please note: We are not a search engine and pride ourselves on being highly selective. We don't accept all sites, so please don't take it personally should your site not be accepted."

S.

donaldb

04-17-2005, 03:29 PM

I honestly just think that we see the ODP from very different perspectives. My only interest is in building a directory. I honestly don't care if no one ever looks in the categories that I edit. I have a number of different places where I find web sites to add to the directory, and the suggested sites pool is just one more place where I may find sites to add to the category. Thanks for suggesting sites for me to add, and if I find some good stuff in there, I'll add them. I don't think that anyone should have any expectations beyond that. I realize that that may come off as sounding a bit arrogant, but it's truly not meant to be taken that way. I just get the feeling that people think that the ODP is something that it's not.

You have to admit that most of the time on these forums, the people who are "discussing" how they think the ODP should work are usually looking at it from the perspective of someone who is just trying to get their site listed because they think that it is going to improve their standing with Google. I certainly understand that perspective, but I don't share it. It's very rare that you see someone on any of these forums who is just asking about why they can't get their personal homepage or favourite author fan site listed in DMOZ. Generally, the only people who complain about the ODP are people who are trying to get listed in Google. If Google stopped using ODP data tomorrow, I don't think that I would be too sad.

Also remember that just because I may ignore some site in the suggested sites pool, it doesn't mean that every other editor who has access to that category is also going to ignore them. For example, in one of the branches where I edit, there are a few named editors for the top of that branch, plus the hundreds of editors above us. I may ignore suggestions about a specific subject because it's not something that I'm interested in, but I know that one of the other named editors always handles those suggestions anyway because it's something he is interested in. That's the beauty of the way things work at the ODP. Nothing is ever completely ignored.

Marcia

04-17-2005, 03:57 PM

I think something that would help is to look at what "who" is responsible for or - more specifically - has volunteered for.

If someone is an editor at the widget main level, and under that are summer and winter widgets, and further under those are green summer widgets and red summer widgets, etc., I can understand the level of commitment of someone who has specifically volunteered for red summer widgets and is an editor in that category.

But what if that specific category has no editor, and an editor two steps up at the main widget category HATES red widgets and and that category is always 99% packed with spam that's fit for the bin, and their favorite area is winter widgets but they're ok with all except those red ones?

When people volunteer their time and efforts, just how far do people think their obligation goes?

macdesign

04-17-2005, 04:39 PM

.... HATES red widgets and and that category is always 99% packed with spam that's fit for the bin, and their favorite area is winter widgets but they're ok with all except those red ones?

There's good and bad in the way that works - if I really don't want to review red widgets I don't have to, but that means I'm free to volunteer there and do what I'm confortable with - and the non-red widgets get reviewed and ODP progresses forwards and adds sites.

It also means that in essence there is some mild form of censorship - I'm not allowed to delete the red's because I don't like them, but I am not forced to review them, so we get a slanted directory that appears to show that red widgets hardly exist. On the other hand if someone really cares enough about red widgets - he can apply as an editor, work hard and find many more red widget sites than blue, and at the end of the that we have a directory that give the indication there are many more red widget sites in the world than any other color. :)

It's more like Darwinian selection :eek:

There will be times that I find a site that probably should be listed in a category, but I don't want to for whatever personal reason [of course if it violate ODP guidelines I just delete it]. That's fine - I do not have to - since there are always hundreds of editors for any category, another editor can come along and review and publish the site. That freedom of choice is a very important part of why ODP works and why editors are productive.

PhilC

04-18-2005, 08:07 AM

We may be looking at DMOZ from different perspectives, Don, but I'm sorry, I don't accept that you are building the directory just for the sake of it. I believe that you are building it for people to use - DMOZ itself, the Google directory, and the myriad of directory sites that use its data. If nobody used the DMOZ data, I am sure that you would stop building it.

I honestly don't care if no one ever looks in the categories that I edit.Forgive me if I don't believe that statement. It is beyond my comprehension that someone would spend so much of their time building a directory, and not have any desire at all that their work is actually useful to people.

You have to admit that most of the time on these forums, the people who are "discussing" how they think the ODP should work are usually looking at it from the perspective of someone who is just trying to get their site listed because they think that it is going to improve their standing with Google.That is probably true, but it isn't the point of this discussion. We are not talking about sites being listed - we are talking about sites not being reviewed after taking up the invitation to suggest a site, that is printed on every page in the DMOZ directory. You seem to keep trying to divert the discussion to being about getting "listed", but it's about being "reviewed".

It has been pointed out how much time it takes to suggest a site properly, and yet the 2 editors who have participated in this thread (cbp and you) have both indicated that they don't care whether sites are suggested or not. They get sites from where they want to get sites from, and they see the unreviewed queue as a low priority source. If you didn't invite suggestions, it would be ok, but you do invite them, and I consider it very inconsiderate, even rude, to ignore them, or to give them such a low priority as has been indicated.

Also remember that just because I may ignore some site in the suggested sites pool, it doesn't mean that every other editor who has access to that category is also going to ignore them. For example, in one of the branches where I edit, there are a few named editors for the top of that branch, plus the hundreds of editors above us. I may ignore suggestions about a specific subject because it's not something that I'm interested in, but I know that one of the other named editors always handles those suggestions anyway because it's something he is interested in. That's the beauty of the way things work at the ODP. Nothing is ever completely ignored.That's not how it works internally. You know very well that, if a category has an active editor, nobody else is going to edit in the category. There are a few exceptions to that, but, generally speaking, when a category editor puts the unreviewed list on the back burner, it means that they are going to remain unreviewed ad-infinitum. The way it generally works is that people don't interfere with categories when they have active editors.

The idea put forward by you, Don, and by macdesign, that there are "hundreds of editors" who can review a category's unreviewed list is true, although I wouldn't have said "hundreds". But you both know that that is not the way it works. If a category has an active editor, others will not generally edit in the category. If the category's editor doesn't do anything much with the unreviewed list, they stay unreviewed.

PhilC

04-18-2005, 08:29 AM

There is (or was) a DMOZ editor called PhilC, but I am not him. I was an editor but I timed out a while back. The name that I have been known by (PhilC) for quite a long time was already taken when I became an editor, so I couldn't use it. I'm mentioning this because I don't want anything of what I say to be attributed to the DMOZ PhilC. My views are nothing to do with him.

sarumu1

04-18-2005, 10:19 AM

Originally Posted by donaldb
I honestly don't care if no one ever looks in the categories that I edit.

I believe Donald. I'm not being snippy, or taking a shot at him. I honestly believe that he thinks he is doing the best possible job for the categories he reviews. He offers his time at resource-zone and he offers his time to help demystify things about DMOZ at forums such as these.

I'm not going to put words in his mouth, but perhaps he meant that if his categories don't get traffic from end-user surfers, he's not going to hit his head against his keyboard - but if someone does come across his edited categories, I'm sure he wants to present a selection of the best possible resources that the web has to offer for that rare surfer.

Originally posted by PhilC
We are not talking about sites being listed - we are talking about sites not being reviewed after taking up the invitation to suggest a site, that is printed on every page in the DMOZ directory. You seem to keep trying to divert the discussion to being about getting "listed", but it's about being "reviewed".

Yup.

S.

sarumu1

04-18-2005, 10:32 AM

I suspect the majority of visitors to DMOZ are webmasters checking on their categories/ competition.

Maybe I'm wrong.

But I really think that DMOZ can be an early destination for a substantial number of casual surfers if they just get the ca$h to improve their search function.

They've got a huge database of human-edited sites - I currently visit DMOZ often, but I would be there all the time before "googling" something if they had a decent search function. WHY? WHY? WHY? I know, I know. I said it already. No ca$h.

But everytime I think about it, it seems like such a travesty. There's another fairly new directory that's really making an inroads because of DMOZ's inability to procure funding for something so necessary.

S.

donaldb

04-21-2005, 10:14 AM

We may be looking at DMOZ from different perspectives, Don, but I'm sorry, I don't accept that you are building the directory just for the sake of it. I believe that you are building it for people to use - DMOZ itself, the Google directory, and the myriad of directory sites that use its data. If nobody used the DMOZ data, I am sure that you would stop building it.Believe what you want, but it honestly doesn't even cross my mind that someone may or may not look at the categories that I edit. Actually, I guess that's technically not true. I care what other editors might think about my editing. I don't want an editor to think that I'm doing a bad job. But that's it. I'm not building the directory for anyone other than myself. I like adding web sites to the directory. How could I ever build it for anyone else? I can't assume that anyone in the world would have any interest in the same things that I'm interested in. If I did think that, how would I ever confirm it? I don't have access to logs that show what categories people are looking at. I build it for myself, and if someone else finds value in the data, then that's great, but it's not why I do it.

That's not how it works internally. You know very well that, if a category has an active editor, nobody else is going to edit in the category. There are a few exceptions to that, but, generally speaking, when a category editor puts the unreviewed list on the back burner, it means that they are going to remain unreviewed ad-infinitum. The way it generally works is that people don't interfere with categories when they have active editors.Maybe that's your experience with the ODP, but it's not mine. Editors with editall+ permissions do edit all over the directory and they are expected to do that. I also edit in categories below the one where I am the named editor even if there is a named editor in that category. I don't do it all the time, but for any number of reasons I might process listings in the unreviewed pile if an editor isn't touching them. I might ask the editor first to see if they need help, or I might just go ahead and do some editing. It depends on the situation. That's not unusual. Maybe you were working in an area where that wasn't being done, but it does happen that way.

If you didn't invite suggestions, it would be ok, but you do invite them, and I consider it very inconsiderate, even rude, to ignore them, or to give them such a low priority as has been indicated.I guess we really do look at that "Suggest URL" link very differently. I've never really thought of it as an invitation. I look at it a way for people to make suggestions. To me those are not the same thing.

sarumu1

04-21-2005, 10:54 AM

I guess we really do look at that "Suggest URL" link very differently. I've never really thought of it as an invitation. I look at it a way for people to make suggestions. To me those are not the same thing.

It doesn't matter how you look at it, or what you call it. Personally, I look at it as an invitation for suggestions.

What does matter (which is what you seem to never respond to):

This suggestion/ invitation link is ubiquitous - located on almost every page of the directory. What cannot be found is a statement clearly letting the "suggestor" know that the "suggestion" may not be read - either next to the link, at any point while the form is being filled, or after the form has been submitted.

If it is DMOZ policy that these suggestions need not be read, then I can live with that - but the average visitor who wants to use that form is absolutely unaware of your "lack of interest" in these suggestion forms. WHY CAN'T YOU LET THEM KNOW THAT THEIR SUGGESTION MAY NOT BE READ* - that's all that we're asking.

Subbu.

*just so you don't confuse that statement as it was misinterpreted earlier - I'm not asking you to let them know that their suggestion may not be ACCEPTED - just simply not read.

PhilC

04-21-2005, 11:26 AM

I guess we really do look at that "Suggest URL" link very differently. I've never really thought of it as an invitation. I look at it a way for people to make suggestions. To me those are not the same thing.Well now you know the way that people see it, and it really is an invitation.

DMOZ is a large directory which is being built for the benefit of Internet users. If your own personal reason for building it is different, then you are unusual and not in line with the purpose of the DMOZ project. People are invited to help the project by suggesting sites, and it is at least discourteous to ignore that help or to put it on the back burner.

Don, your idea that people interfere in categories where there are active editors is not in tune with the reality. My experience is only one piece of evidence. Another piece of evidence is the resource-zone forum. In the beginning, editors who were able to do it reviewed sites when their status was queried by the submitter. Then they stopped reviewing them if the category had an active editor, so as not to interfere with an active editor. Now they don't do it all but only because it became a fast-track way to get a review. Yet another piece of evidence is the vast number of unreviewed throughout the directory (is it below the million mark yet?), and the incredibly long time that many sites have to wait for a review, if they ever get one at all.

Your statement that, "Nothing is ever completely ignored" is an idealistic view that doesn't reflect the reality, and many thousands of people who have submitted sites and watched them languish in the unreviewed queue can verify it.

DMOZ has editalls and meta editors who can review sites in any category, and they have greenbusters who are there to help reduce the number of unreviewed throughout the directory, and yet here we have a meta editor and another editor stating that they don't pay much attention to the unreviewed in the categories they edit. Either the general policy has changed since I was in DMOZ, or both of you are a bit out of step. Why run greenbusters when the active editors aren't bothering? It doesn't make any sense.

But the worst of it for me is that you have both indicated that you prefer to go and find sites on your own than to look at equally good sites, perhaps better sites, that people have taken the time to submit. You seem to have a negative attitude that sites are only submitted for the benefit that being listed in DMOZ brings, and so you turn your backs on them in favour of sites that weren't submitted (were not looking for that benefit). Sites *are* only submitted for that benefit. DMOZ people have created a large directory for the use of people on the Internet, so you can't expect anything different. There is nothing wrong with wanting a site to be listed in DMOZ, and in submitting it, but you seem to see submissions as an attempt to do something wrong, or an attempt to use DMOZ for personal gain. There is no sense in that.

I have defended DMOZ many times in forums. Not long ago cbp PMed me at WPW to thank me for posting some sense in an infamous thread there, but I find nothing defensible in the way that the two of you have said you treat submissions. It doesn't even make good sense for DMOZ itself!

krisval

04-21-2005, 06:55 PM

DMOZ is a large directory which is being built for the benefit of Internet users.

This is a statement that I see repeatedly from DMOZ editors and others who have an understanding of the intent of the directory. I agree that this statement was the intention of DMOZ, but it is not being realized.

I want to talk about one particular example. My wife is a "free sample" junkie and she subscribes to 2 of the most visited savings sites online www. eversave.com - Alexa 4,065 and www. coolsavings.com - Alexa 1,202. I know for a fact that at one time both of these sites were listed in DMOZ. I happened to search DMOZ a few weeks ago and both sites were not there. They were in this category: http://dmoz.org/Home/Homemaking/Frugality/Coupons/. I have no idea when they were dropped, I just happened upon it and found it curious.

If these are 2 of the most popular sites for savings and if they offer unique content and they have both been around for at least 5 years, why would they get the boot? Wouldn't a user want to visit these sites. Millions of others have and do on a regular basis. Also, from what I can tell both comply with federal regulations and are Truste certified.

Would any DMOZ editor who is in this forum care to comment on this?

PhilC

04-22-2005, 06:33 PM

I want to make one more point before Don gets back.

It is DMOZ policy *not* to list every possible site in a category, regardless of how good and useful a site may be. The policy is to have a good selection of sites in a category, and if a category already has enough similar sites, other similar sites won't be listed. That's the general policy.

So what can happen when an editor ignores the submitted sites, or puts them on the back burner, and goes out to find sites that were not submitted? The category gets enough of certain types of sites, so when the submitted ones are looked at, they are rejected because the category already enough similar sites. The submitted ones were in the unreviewed list long before the editor went and found some of his own, but they were ignored, and then they are rejected to avoid too many similar sites. It's not very nice, is it?

Alright, so that scenario is not likely to be the norm, but it can certainly happen because it's DMOZ policy not to have too many similar sites in a category.

Sorry, but I also want to strengthen an earlier point:-

Because of the vast and growing number of unreviewed submissions, the people at DMOZ took the extraordinary step of creating a new editor level called Greenbusters (unreviewed submissions are called "greens"). These are people who are given permissions to review submissions in allocated categories. They can't add sites but they can review them, and when they are done, somebody goes along to add those sites that are accepted. As their name suggests, Greenbusters were created to reduce the vast backlog of unreviewed sites. Before Don comes along and asks me again if I was a party to the creation of Greenbusters, I'll say again that I wasn't - and I'll also say that neither was donaldb. Nevertheless, Greenbusters were created to "bust" the "greens" - they were created to reduce the backlog of unreviewed sites.

It is the desire of DMOZ as a whole to reduce the number of unreviewed sites. That is why the Greenbusters were created.

I think it's remarkable that a meta editor and another editor are here saying that they treat the unreviewed sites as a low priority source of new sites, and even ignore them. Unless the policy towards the backlog of unreviewed sites has changed in recent times, that position is certainly against the desires of DMOZ as a whole, and I'm amazed that it is expressed publically.

donaldb

04-24-2005, 11:30 AM

I don't think that I ever said that I ignore the unreviewed listings. I said that I scan through the pile to see if anything jumps out at me. That's very different from ignoring. I edit some relatively small categories so I see everything that has been suggested. Generally in the categories that I edit it takes me about two minutes to go through a sub-category and do some triage on the unreviewed pile. I can usually move stuff to the more appropriate categories, delete the spam, and list the good stuff if it's there.

So what can happen when an editor ignores the submitted sites, or puts them on the back burner, and goes out to find sites that were not submitted? The category gets enough of certain types of sites, so when the submitted ones are looked at, they are rejected because the category already enough similar sites. The submitted ones were in the unreviewed list long before the editor went and found some of his own, but they were ignored, and then they are rejected to avoid too many similar sites. It's not very nice, is it?I think this only happens in very specific types of categories, but it's not a general rule. I know that I've seen people talk about it in forums, but personally I've never even seen an instance of this happening. Do you have an example of a category where this is the case? Maybe in some high affiliate prone shopping category, but it's certainly not happening directory wide.

Alright, so that scenario is not likely to be the norm, but it can certainly happen because it's DMOZ policy not to have too many similar sites in a category.I think it's more a case of bad advice being given, but it's certainly not policy. Look at the Web Developer categories. Those are bursting with similar sites. Is there somewhere in the guidelines that talks about this policy? Just because someone says it in a forum it doesn't make it so.

Greenbusters where also created to allow editors to learn the ropes without being able to publish sites to the live directory. It was a spin-off of the mentoring program that was doing the same thing but more manually.

But the worst of it for me is that you have both indicated that you prefer to go and find sites on your own than to look at equally good sites, perhaps better sites, that people have taken the time to submit.Have you looked in the unreviewed piles for the categories that I edit? How do you know what's in there right now? I can honestly say that pretty much one out of ten of the suggested sites sitting there right now is actually of any value to the category where it was suggested. You can't imagine the crap that gets suggested to the Polar_Regions category. Why would someone submit porn to Polar_Regions? :) Right now there are 34 sites waiting to be reviewed. Nothing is ever in that pile for long. I just haven't had a chance to look at them recently. They will be looked at either by me, or by someone else who happens along.

Don, your idea that people interfere in categories where there are active editors is not in tune with the reality. My experience is only one piece of evidence. Another piece of evidence is the resource-zone forum. In the beginning, editors who were able to do it reviewed sites when their status was queried by the submitter. Then they stopped reviewing them if the category had an active editor, so as not to interfere with an active editor. Now they don't do it all but only because it became a fast-track way to get a review.I'm not sure I follow this. Why are you calling it interfering? It's a group project, no one is interfering with anything. Where are you getting this information about how and why we do things the way we do at the R-Z forum? There is no basis in reality to any of these statements. From day one we told editors not to review sites just because someone asked them to do it on R-Z. The policy never changed from that.

People do work collaboratively in the ODP. I'm a named editor in a category, but it doesn't mean that I'm the only editor who edits in that category. Every day when I log in I see that the numbers have changed on the categories that I edit. I assume that someone has been along to do some editing. Excellent! That's the way it's supposed to work.

We're never going to agree on any of this stuff. We're just rehashing the same old stuff that has been discussed a thousand times over on these forums. I don't want us to go down that same path. I think we need to agree to disagree and leave it at that. This is taking me away from reviewing suggested sites that I invite everyone to submit :)

P.S. I really hope that no one listens to much of what I say here. I'm certainly not the authority on anything ODP related. I'm not even that well respected among my "peers" :D

kctipton

04-24-2005, 12:56 PM

Submissions submitted via the DMOZ form should be reviewed - regardless of whether a site is accepted into the directory or not

As donaldb has already mentioned, submissions regularly get visually scanned for possible appropriateness (meaning, read the title and description for clues as to the content and nature of the site), and those that pass the first screen get an actual visit to see if the site is working and has enough unique, on-topic content to get listed in the category to which it was submitted.

Submit a site with nonsense titles and/or descriptions, possibly to the wrong category, maybe written in the wrong language, and your "suggestion" will indeed sit, un-viewed, possibly forever. No greenbuster desires to slog through obvious missubmissions any more than other editors.

My wife is a "free sample" junkie and she subscribes to 2 of the most visited savings sites online ... I know for a fact that at one time both of these sites were listed in DMOZ. I happened to search DMOZ a few weeks ago and both sites were not there.

Yea, that category got cleaned up, and I helped. The category charter has been retooled as well (I think). Nobody ever said that the "most visited" sites (whatever that means) would get into DMOZ, or get to stay in once listed, did they?

PhilC

04-24-2005, 02:14 PM

I don't think that I ever said that I ignore the unreviewed listings.You have indicated in this thread that you ignore submissions, and I can only go by what you say - specifically, "Also remember that just because I may ignore some site in the suggested sites pool ...".

I don't have an example of good sites being rejected because a category already has enough similar sites, but I've seen it said many times by DMOZ editors that I assume it to be policy. Although I can't remember precisely where, I am sure that I've seen it said or written internally, and I am sure that it's DMOZ policy. However, I did go on to say that the scenario I described is not likely to be the norm, but it could happen if editors generally do as you and cpb say you do - treat submissions as a low priority source of sites.

No, Don, I haven't looked at your unreveiwed. I am only commenting on what has been said by you and cbp in this thread, although cbp did say the same thing in the infamous WPW threads.

Why are you calling it interfering? It's a group project, no one is interfering with anythingFrom my own experience, it is considered bad etiquette for an editor higher up the cat tree to edit in a sub-cat that has an active editor.

Where are you getting this information about how and why we do things the way we do at the R-Z forum? There is no basis in reality to any of these statements. From day one we told editors not to review sites just because someone asked them to do it on R-Z. The policy never changed from that.Who is this "we"? You were quite a new editor when resource-zone was launched, and you didn't become a meta editor until some time afterwards. But you are mistaken, Don. In the beginning, people at R-Z did review sites when people queried their status. Then they stopped doing it if the category had an active editor. After that, they stopped doing it altogether. Discussions were had in the editor forum there to decide these things. Perhaps you weren't active at R-Z at the time - I was.

Every day when I log in I see that the numbers have changed on the categories that I edit. I assume that someone has been along to do some editing. Excellent! That's the way it's supposed to work.Perhaps it is the way it's supposed to work, but it isn't the way it actually work in general. For instance, when I became the editor for a county, it was pointed out to me that one of the county's many sub-categories already had an active editor, and it was rightly pointed out to me so that I wouldn't interfere with what he was doing.

However, you are right that we don't appear to be able to come to any sort of agreement. I maintain that the "Suggest URL" links are an invitation for people to submit sites, and the time it takes to submit a site is not insignificant when it is done properly. I also maintain that it is discourteous, and even rude, to treat those submissions as merely a low priority source of sites, and even more so to ignore them. You obvuiously don't agree with any of it, so we can leave it there if you wish.

agreen1125

06-02-2005, 03:08 PM

Are there any unwritten rule/s on how to get into DMOZ?

cbp

06-02-2005, 06:18 PM

Are there any unwritten rule/s on how to get into DMOZ?

1. Have a site that is so damn good that the editor can not resist listing it (keep in mind, it must add value to the content of the category, not just have what other sites in the category have, otherwise whats the point of having it added?).

2. Write a perfect guideline compliant title and description (that way you stand out in the pool of unreviewed sites)

3. Submit once to the one best category

4. Move on. There is absolutly nothing more that can be done; don't become obsessed; spend the time improving and promoting your site elsewhere with productive efforts.

sarumu1

06-04-2005, 11:10 AM

dmoz is all about the content.

if you provide unique content - even if it is presented horribly and written poorly, a dmoz editor will still be hard-pressed to keep you out.

subbu.

macdesign

06-05-2005, 01:32 AM

From my own experience, it is considered bad etiquette for an editor higher up the cat tree to edit in a sub-cat that has an active editor.That may or may not be true [and I used to have the same thought], but it's inevitable it will happen. For example I have editing access at a high level in a category tree, there are hundreds of suib-categories. There are around 10 editors in categories under me. It's very difficult to remember who is actively editing, so if I go into a category and see some work needs doing, should I ignore or go and spend time checking the editing history of the editor, and try and see if he is likely to take care of it soon, or should I do it myself.

If I'm doing a bulk edit/review of the whole area, when I look at a site, I have no idea if another editor below me currently also has the ability to edit the site. I'm not going to waste my time checking, if I'm about to review the site now, I may as well get it done now, review it and not check.

Likewise editors at a higher level than me may come into "my" categories and take care of things. Apart from anything else, it will remind all editors that other editors do poke around, do qualiity control and check for possible inappropriate behaviour.

Sometimes editors do not get this, and complain on the internal forums that another editor has been interfering with "their" category. When it's pointed out the other editor was correcting incorrect descriptions, it has sometimes led to arguments, and the resignation of an editor.

Bit this is prcisely the point that we make - "no editor owns or controls a categroy" that's what puts a limit on corruption. If an editor gets a little payoff for keyword loading a description, at any time another editor could come in and change it.

tiny

06-05-2005, 02:14 PM

I love the idea of DMOZ, the human edited side, building a worthwhile database on online knowledge. I'm also sure that many many of the editors do some excellent work.

Unfortunately, my experience of the contents of thee directory is very negative. Would anyone here really use DMOZ as a source of research? Ever? At any point?

A few months ago I imported a large part of a certain subject area, with the aim of using it as a base for a targetted directory. Unfortunately, I found the results to be largely garbage.

I had intended to wade through the data and reaprraise the sites. However, after chucking out the broken links, innacurate listings and Geocities oddities, I was left with about 50% of usable data. I was genuinely shocked and in future I shall start from scratch, as it is far less effort and the quality will be far better.

I'm sure that this varies drastically from category to category. But DMOZ aren't really helping themselves. I applied to be an editor a month ago and have yet to receive a, non-automated, response.

cbp

06-05-2005, 07:23 PM

Unfortunately, my experience of the contents of thee directory is very negative. Would anyone here really use DMOZ as a source of research? Ever? At any point?
As an editor (and familiar with DMOZ = bias), I do use it for some topics....especially medical topics. for eg, search for info on some diseases, often all you get in SE are the well SEO'd sites trying to sell you the drug to treat the disease. In DMOZ category you get the less well SEO'd really good informational sites.

The classic is mesothelioma - look at the DMOZ category; look at the Google results (there are a couple of good ones, but not most); look at all the new diretories springing up (that where the lawyer mesothelioma spam gets listed...not in DMOZ) ..... I guess it comes down to how familiar you are with DMOZ to use it to look for things.

(as an aside....its eg's like this where I kinda hope that a DMOZ listing and all its alleged benefits help a site rank better in SE's --- ie a good disease specific information site that knows nothing about SEO can beat out in the SERP's a well SEO'd site that only want to sell me a drug to treat it)

Last time I worked it out, for my sites - around 0.1-0.5% of traffic come from DMOZ (proably more if clones included) --- thats a few hundred visitors a day just to my sites - so a lot of people must be using DMOZ to look for things.

mtweed

06-06-2005, 07:01 PM

I've seen alot of discussions about the value and validity of DMOZ. Personally, I agree with most of the comments suggesting DMOZ is good for what its worth. Being a free listing, it can't hurt to try and the benefits are good if you do get indexed.

That being said, I understand the frustration. The overloaded the threads, the perception of elitist moderators, etc.

It is what it is, and yes it could be better. But at the same time you're getting something that only costs you the few minutes it takes to fill out a submission.

DanThies

06-07-2005, 04:54 PM

It seems to me that there's a wide gap between what website owners expect DMOZ to be, and what the people running it want it to be.

On the one hand, the people running DMOZ have made it clear repeatedly that they don't want to include a whole bunch of sites offering the same thing. Do they screw up? Sure they do, that's one of the things that comes along with employing humans.

As unique as SEO Research Labs is within the SEM industry, our site was rejected for lack of unique content. I didn't blame a conspiracy, I chalked it up to a failure to communicate. I'll just wait the required amount of time and resubmit, with a note to the editor about recent changes and why our content is in fact unique.

In contrast to the goals of the DMOZ editors, those of us submitting (suggesting) our sites to the directory expect it to be the "directory of record," and that if our sites are of sufficient quality, they will be listed in DMOZ. But that's not what DMOZ is about.

What's missing, if anything, is a "directory of record" that will categorize and list websites that meet certain objective standards, regardless of how many there are. DMOZ isn't up to the job, and they don't want it anyway. Yahoo could be seen that way, but it's a commercial enterprise.

PhilC

08-20-2005, 06:58 PM

Sorry to resurrect this thread, but the submissions problem is worse that I'd realised.

I just went to Resource Zone and stumbled into this thread (http://resource-zone.com/forum/showthread.php?t=40431). I was amazed. It seems that many editors no longer agree that DMOZ has a backlog of unreviewed sites. Why? Because submitted sites are not waiting to be reviewed - they are just a load of sites to dip into if an editor wants to add a site or two. In other words, they are not behind at all, because they don't have any unreviewed sites - only a pool of sites that are not waiting to be reviewed. It's one way of getting bang up to date.

It's changed a lot since I was an editor. They used to be keen on getting the unreviewed pile down, and took steps to deal with it - even creating the "Greenbusters" for the purpose. It seems that the thinking has changed a lot - and, imo, for the worse.

Having read that thread, which is very current (yesteray and today), I go along with Danny in strongly suggesting that DMOZ removes the "Suggest a site" invitations. To be very British about it - it is really bad form to invite someone to do something and then ignore them when they do it - really bad form. If DMOZ stops issuing the invitations, then nobody will be ignored, and DMOZ will be able to do what they now appear to want to do.

projectphp

08-20-2005, 11:37 PM

I started reading 1984 by George Orwell again, and the change from unreviewed to pool of sites is a semantic change Orwell would have been proud of!

Personally, and I mean this sincerely, I respect the ability to redefine a problem such that is no longer one. Why solve problems when you can just define them out of existence?

PhilC

08-21-2005, 12:17 AM

Exactly! :D

Of course, a side effect of there being no backlog is that DMOZ is not longer short of editors, and everything in the garden is rosey.

DanThies

08-22-2005, 12:41 PM

I started reading 1984 by George Orwell again, and the change from unreviewed to pool of sites is a semantic change Orwell would have been proud of!
Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia...
Why solve problems when you can just define them out of existence?
Or, as Douglas Adams had it, make them invisible by defining them as someone else's problem.

Removing the submission process may be slightly better than "inviting and ignoring" submissions, but either one makes DMOZ less useful and less relevant.

macdesign

08-22-2005, 01:08 PM

If you wish to declare that there is a backlog in ODP, you are free to do so. But the definition of a backlog cannot possibly be based only on the sites that are submitted, many of which are spam and mirrors, vanity and pure junk. That would be a highly distorted view of reality. The backlog must in fairness contain all the sites that are deserving of a listing, but that no-one has ever submitted.

PhilC

08-22-2005, 01:46 PM

"backlog" is the word the DMOZ people were using in that thread when referring to the unreviewed pile, and the word is normally used by DMOZ people as well as outsiders to describe the huge number of unreviewed submissions.

I understand your point, MD, but the fact that there are many new sites that haven't been submitted can't really be described as a "backlog". Not being up to date is better described as....well....."not being up to date".

macdesign

08-22-2005, 02:49 PM

The problem is that there is no good term to handle the situation.

When faced with a [backlog/queue/heap/pile/suggestion list or whatever] in one area that I edit, it's with a certain amount of negativity, since I know that:

about 20% will be spam submissions of sites that already exist under some alternate identity - that's not a backlog, that's spam

about 10% will be sites that were already submitted - that's not backlog - that's wasting my time

about 30% will not be in English, since the submitter failed to read the category description - that said ---in their own native language-- not to submit sites not in English - that's not a backlog, it's a laziness [and I have to spend the time moving them]

about 10% will be in the totally wrong category - that's not backlog - that's confusion - I can sympathize however, since ODP has a lot of categories

about 10% are such badly thought out webs sites, impossible to read colors, bad navigation, under construction, and so forth, that they are not listable - that's not backlog, it's clutter and it's just sad that everyone thinks they can design sites.

Of the rest, maybe it's backlog, but from my way of thinking, if I go into my speciality tea shop, and find they have a web site, and it's not listed and was never suggested - I think that is also backlog. Those sites I jump to list, since I see in front of me the value of listing, rather than a bunch of marketing verbage.

Of the pile of suggested sites, there is a constant tendency to view a site that was submitted two years ago, as being "backlog" while the site that was submitted yesterday is not. From these people think that is more important to review the site that was submitted earlier. Try to have an open mind, and realize that is incorrect thinking.

For example, one could make a more valid point by saying that the site that has been online longer should be reviewed earlier since it has been waiting longer.

Now I realize that all this is difficult, since everyone tries to view the ODP in the same terms as other institutions.

I like to think of it as a cake shop that sells cakes on consignment, that has some cake tasters at the front door and a streetfull of home and professional bakers trying to get the bakery to sell their wares. There is no line up, there is no "take a number", the bakers are jumping up and down outside trying to get attention with big signs describing their cakes. The tasters have a problem, a lot of the cakes look good, but when you taste them you throw up. A lot of the signs look good, but don't describe the cake correctly. When you say no, the baker wants an explanation, but you don't want to discuss it. You don;t wnat to hurt his feelings, or you don;t want to explain how come you know he didn't really bake the cake, [it was made from a mix, and there is nothing unique about it].

And why do all these bakers want the cake shop to put their cake on the shelf? Because a myth developed that if their cake was on the shelf, then they would make it in the catering world, that customers would come to their door and gold coins would fall from the sky.

PhilC

08-22-2005, 03:23 PM

I do see your points, MD, and I've been a DMOZ editor so I also understand them, but I don't think the word "backlog" was ever used to describe only the submitted sites that merit inclusion in the category where they were submitted to. Everybody, DMOZ people included, has always used it to describe the pile of unreviewed submissions, and we understand it to mean that there's a backlog of reviews to do, regardless of whether or not the sites merit inclussion. To say now that the word only refers to those sites that merit inclusion in the cats they were submitted to is to change the meaning, which is the reason that I resurrected this thread.

From what I understood from the resource-zone thread, the idea that there is no massive backlog of reviews to do, because submitted sites are not there to be reviewed, is spreading through DMOZ. That's ok. The problem has been redefined so that it no longer exists, but I really dislike it when the site still invites people to submit/suggest sites, implying that the submitted sites will if fact be reviewed, when the spreading intention is to ignore the submissions unless an editor just happens to fancy looking at a few.

One of your points is that many submissions are in the wrong category, but people outside are not familiar with the exact category stucture, and it takes time for them to find the exact one. It also takes time to read and understand the guidelines for writing Titles and Descriptions. A good submission really does take time to do. So the invitations to submit actually ask people to spend some time on it. It's bad form to ignore them after that.

I don't know if you remember your editor application, but I remember my first one. I found some sites to suggest, and I wrote the Titles and Descriptions ok, but at least one of the sites would have been in the wrong catgeory - AND I was taking a lot of time to get it right. Outsiders simply don't know the category structure, and will often submit to the wrong one. You can't blame them for that. I know that it takes your time to send them to the right category, but it's often nobody's fault.

DanThies

08-22-2005, 04:19 PM

One of your points is that many submissions are in the wrong category, but people outside are not familiar with the exact category stucture, and it takes time for them to find the exact one. It also takes time to read and understand the guidelines for writing Titles and Descriptions. A good submission really does take time to do. So the invitations to submit actually ask people to spend some time on it. It's bad form to ignore them after that.
Editors sometimes can't agree on the right category. I've had submissions ping-ponged back and forth between categories and eventually rejected, or simply left in the queue of unreviewed sites.

Hearing that many editors just don't consider unreviewed sites to be worth the time, is disappointing and frustrating. When I think of the hour or so I'd spent looking at categories, working on a description, and going through the submission process (in the hope that the server doesn't choke on it that day), I give up. As things stand right now, it appears that submitting to DMOZ isn't worth the time.

macdesign

08-22-2005, 04:21 PM

One of your points is that many submissions are in the wrong category, but people outside are not familiar with the exact category stucture, and it takes time for them to find the exact one.I fully agree, and that's my 10% figure. If however, the submitter does not even bother to read a category description, which clearly specifies where not to submit, then I have little sympathy. Bear in mind, that editors are not supposed to delete sites submitted to the wrong category, but to try to move them to the right place, so the submitter does not get directly penalized, but may experience further delays.

It also takes time to read and understand the guidelines for writing Titles and Descriptions. A good submission really does take time to do.That's why they are so rare to find, however, my experience [and this is supported by other editors] is that a good description stands out from the list of unreviewed and is likely to be reviewed ahead of the others. The reality is that most titles and descriptions as provided are incorrect, often to the point that they are totally scrapped and rewritten. One might argue that the site submission page should not even bother asking for a title and/or description since they are scrapped so mush of the time. I think it akes most editor a month or so to get up to speed with descriptions. Some never catch on, and end up leaving.

I even wonder why we bother asking for URL's since they are often also incorrect <G> (I'm semi-serious, about one in 200 URL's are incorrect and I have to do a little guessing as to what it should be)

So the invitations to submit actually ask people to spend some time on it. It's bad form to ignore them after that.I think the business about ignoring submission is overstated, I would say that editors with small numbers of categories will review every submission in a fairly timely fashion. Note however, if they take over a category that has not been of interest to anyone then the {[("backlog")]} may be substantial and it might take a while to catch up.

I do know that there are editors who would recommend that submissions be turned off, because of spam and other reasons, This is not the majority opinion. My own experience it that at least 90% of what I review comes from the suggested heap. It's just at times frustrating dealing with the low quality.

I don't know if you remember your editor application, but I remember my first one.Yes I do, it was so bad, I applied for the wrong category, and luckily whoever reviewed it figured out where I really wanted to be, and changed it. My supplied titles and descriptions where also very poor. Reviewing editors have to use judgement as to whether someone can improve.

Outsiders simply don't know the category structure, and will often submit to the wrong one.Yes (but to repeat again) if the category says, "do not submit this category unless you do business outside your state" and they go ahead and submit - then I just wonder how much time someone took to submit the site.

I know that it takes your time to send them to the right category, but it's often nobody's fault.Agree, and in that case I have no problems.

macdesign

08-22-2005, 04:32 PM

As things stand right now, it appears that submitting to DMOZ isn't worth the time.It's simply not true. It is worth the time. However, obsessing about DMOZ submissions is not worth the time.

Even if a category is neglected, and no sites have been added for a year, you should submit to it. An experienced editor may apply for it tonight, and decide to review the latest suggestions first, and you could be listed tomorrow.

DanThies

08-22-2005, 05:51 PM

What you're saying is, even though there's maybe a 20% chance that anyone will ever look at it, and at best a 50/50 chance that they'll add the site... go ahead and spend an hour working through a submission. That works out to about 10 hours for every site that actually gets added.

It's not worth my time, and not something I could in good conscience bill to a client. Their ROI, on average, would be better if I just bought them $200 worth of lottery tickets.

macdesign

08-22-2005, 06:38 PM

I think spending an hour on a submission is excessive, should be around five minutes. Perhaps more if you want to, but certainly not more than 15 minutes.

Like the submission to any directory, it is of course your choice. There are many directories around. Some of those that are recommended - I would not spend even 30 seconds to submit to. We all, in the end, have to sift through much conflicting information and make our own marketing and promotion decisions.

PhilC

08-22-2005, 08:35 PM

We could discuss various details for a long time - agreeing with some and perhaps disagreeing with others, but, imo, the spreading idea within DMOZ - that submitted sites are a low priority source of sites, and that they aren't even seen as a backlog to be dealt with - to be a big change for the worse.

There was something else in that resource-zone thread that makes the whole thing even worse. A DMOZ editor equated the long delays to a parking lot system that he was involved with, where the prices were put up so that not too many people wanted to park there and the surrounding streets weren't choked with cars waiting to get in. The idea being that the long delays in getting sites reviewed are actually a good and desirable thing, because it stops many people from submitting their sites. From that thread, it would be easy to assume that the long delays are intentional, though I find it hard to believe - at the moment. If that idea became commonplace within DMOZ...... words would fail me.

projectphp

08-22-2005, 08:55 PM

about 20% will be spam submissions of sites that already exist under some alternate identity - that's not a backlog, that's spam
Why not have whois data for every site liste, and then you can cross check and cross reference? That 20% just got 72% easier to detect in 93.5% of cases :)

DanThies

08-23-2005, 12:02 PM

From the DMOZ folks I've spoken with, technology is a big barrier to the directory's successful operation. From problems with generating the RDF files, to problems with the search, to problems with identifying duplicate submissions.

I keep seeing people talk about the directory's "mission" but I wonder exactly what they think that is... let's look at a few quotes from http://dmoz.org/about.html to see if we can sort it out:
Automated search engines are increasingly unable to turn up useful results to search queries. The small paid editorial staffs at commercial directory sites can't keep up with submissions, and the quality and comprehensiveness of their directories has suffered. Link rot is setting in and they can't keep pace with the growth of the Internet.
Hmmm... probably written several years ago, because search engines turn up more useful results to search queries than DMOZ. DMOZ can't keep up with submissions, the quality and comprehensiveness of the directory has suffered, and link rot is setting in big time - or worse, links that point to a completely different resource than what was originally listed.
The Open Directory follows in the footsteps of some of the most important editor/contributor projects of the 20th century. Just as the Oxford English Dictionary became the definitive word on words through the efforts of a volunteers, the Open Directory follows in its footsteps to become the definitive catalog of the Web.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines "definitive" as an adjective meaning "the most authoritative of its kind." Ignoring submissions means depending on category editors to achieve this. That's kind of difficult when there are so many unedited categories.

Although some editors may not see the backlog of submissions as a backlog, that's what it is, and that's how it's described on the
DMOZ web site (http://dmoz.org/guidelines/greenbuster/):
The goals of the Greenbuster permission are to:

* Reduce to the backlogs of submissions
* ...

What happened to these goals (http://dmoz.org/guidelines/include.html)?
The ODP's goal is two-fold: to create the most comprehensive and definitive directory of the Web, and to create a high quality, content rich resource that the general public considers useful and indispensable. In short, editors should select quality sites and lots of them.

In this thread and other places, I've heard the opposite, that editors don't want lots of sites, just a few representative sites from a category. The word "mission" is being used to justify an awful lot of conflicting views.

So can anyone tell me, what exactly is the mission of DMOZ?

PhilC

08-23-2005, 12:34 PM

What an excellent and very revealing post, Dan!

the Open Directory follows in its [Oxford English Dictionary] footsteps to become the definitive catalog of the Web.
...
The ODP's goal is two-fold: to create the most comprehensive and definitive directory of the WebI'm definitely not a DMOZ basher, and I often defend them, although I do find fault in some areas. But I wasn't aware of the things you quoted. The stated practises of some, many, most or even all editors are way out of sync with DMOZ's stated mission. The mission statement is certainly a shot against the frequently expressed "DMOZ is not a listing service" when used as a reason for not reviewing suggested sites and not listing perfectly good sites. Either DMOZ's mission is to be "the definitive catalog of the Web ..." and "the most comprehensive and definitive directory of the Web" or it isn't. So I reiterate Dan's question...

What exactly is the mission of DMOZ?

unreviewed

08-23-2005, 12:51 PM

>>So can anyone tell me, what exactly is the mission of DMOZ?

Long ago, the ODP became a virtual reality game, based on a semi-closed community, with the game environment centered on community involvement. The game has all the classic battles and reward systems common to other reality simulators, and as with other games, to reach the top, it requires complete immersion, and suspension of disbelief.

DanThies

08-23-2005, 01:00 PM

Thanks, Phil. I'm not a DMOZ basher either. I don't think that their mission, whatever it is, can be accomplished with what they have to work with.

To go back to technology for a second, there are a few things I'd want to implement if I owned a directory like DMOZ:

1) A CAPCHA system on the submission form, immediately, to cut down the spam submissions.

2) A user registration system, as soon as possible. To submit sites, you must register, simple as that. Find out how many (and which) submitters are site owners, designers/consultants, etc.

3) Transparency! The status of submitted sites should not be an inside secret, the user who submits a site should be able to check the status.

4) A workflow process that allows for backlogged submissions to be reviewed by a human being within a "reasonable" time.

5) More editors, especially in commercial categories. Too often we find someone with a vested interest as the sole editor in a category.

6) More transparency - the reason for a rejection should be known to the submitter, and an appeals process should be implemented.

7) In the long run, something like the GoGuides submission specialist program would be very helpful. Give 'those who would be editors' a standardized test, and some training/info like Zeal does.

8) Even more transparency - tell rejected editors why their applications were rejected. A standardized test would generate transparency into the editor selection process, if a standardized test isn't implemented, giving rejected editor applicants some information about why they were rejected would help.

Okay, now who wants to pay for all that? Can you say Open Source?

PhilC

08-23-2005, 01:52 PM

An excellent list of todos.

On your #5 and #8 points, see http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=7472 - I was writing that as you were writing your post :)

DanThies

08-23-2005, 02:50 PM

I think the DMOZ concept of editors is too limiting - it doesn't really make the web into a self-organizing community, it just makes DMOZ into a closed community that can't agree on its mission.

With registered users, you could have some sort of "mojo points" or "trust level" for a submitter... if someone has submitted 10 or 20 sites and they all passed muster, then why not just let them stick sites into the directory? Maybe your first 5 have to be reviewed before they can be listed, then they get listed but can be reviewed after the fact.

The original GoGuides worked on a system like that - you could sign up to be a guide, but until you had done quite a few successful edits, you weren't trusted. As you contributed more, the trust level increased, if you screwed something up you lost points. Not that the GoGuides system was a great model overall, but they did do some things right.

Another area where they might improve workflow is actually separating the "quality review" from the "editorial content." You could let one group of people rate sites on quality, uniqueness, etc. and have another team that deals with the title, description, and URL for approved sites.

PhilC

08-23-2005, 06:55 PM

Another area where they might improve workflow is actually separating the "quality review" from the "editorial content." You could let one group of people rate sites on quality, uniqueness, etc. and have another team that deals with the title, description, and URL for approved sites.I don't think that would work, Dan. In fact it would increase the amount of time taken to review a site. I.e. a person from the first team would look around the site and flag it as acceptable or not. Then another person would still need to look around the site to be able to write a suitable Description. The looking around the site part is the most time-consuming, and that part would be doubled. Once somebody has looked around, they might as well list it if it's acceptable, because it only takes another minute or so to write the Title and Description, and even less to reject it.

Having said that, I'm wondering if there is already some sort of pre-reviewing in place. I have a brand new site that was recently looked at by somebody from DMOZ, 2 days after submitting it. The path they followed in the site was so short that it couldn't possibly be used as a proper review of the site. It didn't get listed, so either it was a very unsatisfactory review from everyone's point of view, or it was somebody just weeding the category's unreviewed list, or there is some sort of pre-review already going on. My gut feeling is that it was the first of those.

DanThies

08-23-2005, 07:26 PM

I'm talking about a pre-filtering process, yes. If we take MacDesign's numbers...
about 20% will be spam submissions of sites that already exist under some alternate identity
Could a volunteer team, or a robot, sort through these without bothering the editors? I'd say probably so, but I'll allow the possibility that half might slip past undetected.
about 10% will be sites that were already submitted
Could a volunteer team, or a robot, sort through these? I'd say yes.
about 30% will not be in English, since the submitter failed to read the category description
Could a volunteer team, or a robot, sort through these? I'd say yes.

Already, we've eliminated about 50% of submissions.

about 10% will be in the totally wrong category
This probably has to fall to the editor, although you could probably catch a few.
about 10% are such badly thought out webs sites, impossible to read colors, bad navigation, under construction, and so forth, that they are not listable
Couldn't most of these be sorted out by people who have no knowledge of the category itself?

As you've pointed out, simply making it possible for more folks to particpate as editors, or at least not discouraging them, would make a big difference. Now think about how folks could contribute without actually becoming full-blown editors? How many people would be willing to simply look at one randomly selected website a day, and provide some basic feedback? Let a few volunteers look at each submission, get a consensus, and see how much of the trash gets thrown out before an editor has to see it.

This is all just amusing conversation of course. The folks steering this tanker don't want to see the rocks up ahead. It's not a backlog, it's just a queue of unreviewed websites. Everything in Oceania is doubleplusgood, and chocolate rations have been increased from two ounces a day to one.

PhilC

08-23-2005, 08:26 PM

... and chocolate rations have been increased from two ounces a day to one.LOL!!!!! (and because that's too short to post - LOL!!!!)

projectphp

08-23-2005, 09:39 PM

Okay, now who wants to pay for all that?
Google AdSense :)

Seriously, why not? If DMOZ lones amde money with AdSense, why can't DMOZ, the original? I have never heard a good answer to that question, and nothing in the mission of DMOZ, nor the social contract excludes it.

AdSense alone would pay for at least one full time staff, as well as perhaps some dedicated DMOZers, to implement all the groovey changes, and keep on top of stuff.

Revenue is the number one problem with DMOZ in two ways: no revenue source and no willingness to find a revenue source. Heck, even wikipedia accepts donations, so they accept that they at least need some help. The beutiful symetry of a circular problem like no revenue and no willingness to look is also doubleplusgood in its Orwellianess.

So can anyone tell me, what exactly is the mission of DMOZ?
Like a political party or religion, no two people probably want the same thing at all.

macdesign

08-23-2005, 10:13 PM

If we take MacDesign's numbers...To clarify, that was my experience in a large category area that I work on. Those numbers do not apply everywhere. I have a category where at least 99% of the submissions are accepted. I have a category where 95% of the submissions are incorrect in that category and have to be moved one ofrtwo levels lower [where I can still edit them] or deleted for being spam. I have one where almost 100% are misplaced and have to moved to another category for another editor.

I know that some editors work in areas where a significant number of submissions are deleted for being spam. In total, for all the categories where I edit, although I get a very high percentage of misplaced [which I move] I don't get a high number of spam [to be deleted]

..already some sort of pre-reviewing in placeThe only official preview is the greenbuster editor - for some categories [not a lot of them] someone may have totally reviewed the site and it just waits approval from another editor.

Unofficialy editors may pre-review - but they decide how they want to do that. I pre-review every site - often within a day - just to make sure the site is roughly speaking in the right category [if not it's moved], that it's in English [if not it's moved], that it's not spam or porn or under construction [to be deleted]. That review should be less than 20 seconds, and I might only look at the home page and the contact page to get an address. Other things that I do in a pre-review depend on the category, I might make some notes to myself for future reference when reviewed.

PhilC

08-23-2005, 11:52 PM

I don't know what to think of the editor's visit to that new site. If it was 'the' review, it was a very shabby one.

Getting back to your original GoGuides system, Dan - it's a very good idea. The Greenbusters are able to review sites, write Titles and Descriptions, and flag them for inclusion, but they are also editors, so when they are greenbusting, they are not working in their categories, and it's often done as a way of becoming the editor of a much bigger category. It's also done just to have a welcome change - different topics. But bringing new people in to do a job like that sounds like an excellent idea to me. They wouldn't be able to actually add sites, so they wouldn't need to be perfect. Excellent idea - as is your other idea of having a system of trusted submitters.

Sadly, I can't see the GoGuides idea happening. I had a read through some of the resource-zone threads in their editor applications sub-forum the other day, and I got the strong impression that they aren't all that bothered about adding new editors. More than once I saw the response to people who had applied a month earlier, that the application is still waiting to be reviewed. If they don't have a backlog, then they are not short of editors, and the attitude of not rushing to add new editors did seem to show in those threads.

PhilC

08-24-2005, 08:55 PM

I've been thinking about this since Dan showed us those bits from DMOZ pages, and I've come to the conclusion that achieving the original objective of becoming the definitive catalogue of the Web, is and always was impossible, because of the way that it was set it up to operate.

The web grew at too fast a pace for them to be able to keep up, the directory grew so large that maintaining it free from link rot and other bad links became an impossible task, and the improved quality of the main search engines' results eclipsed the need for its relevancy. Basically, the reasons for its creation either no longer exist, or DMOZ itself now suffers from them, and worse than anything that went before.

Inasmuch as it didn't, and can't, achieve its objectives, it has failed. But it's not a complete failure. It is a directory that contains a large number of website listings, most of which are not dead or changed, and that's all it will ever be. If some people find it useful, then it can be considered to be a success in that respect. Not many people use directories to find things, but as long as some people do, DMOZ must be the best one to use.

So to answer the question in the Title of this thread - no, DMOZ is not that great, and, imo, it never will be.

What they need to do is change the text on their pages - get rid of the original reasons for creating the directory, because they can't be achieved, and bring the pages up to date with a dose of reality.

meechp123

09-15-2005, 01:39 AM

WOW, I can't believe this thread is STILL going!

Anyway, I gave up on DMOZ. I submitted my site like 8 months ago and nothing is up. I agree with the last post; they just can't keep up with the Web.

Thanks for replying to my question (everyone)!

macdesign

09-15-2005, 07:53 PM

they just can't keep up with the Web. and they specifically do not intend to

http://www.dmoz.org/add.html ::>

We don't accept all sites, so please don't take it personally should your site not be accepted. Our goal is to make the directory as useful as possible for our users, not to have the directory include all (or even most) of the sites that could possibly be listed or serve as a promotional tool for the entities listed.

g7submit

09-15-2005, 09:00 PM

I have submitted many sites, which have not been included bar one (mine) and the process was the same, even though my site was later removed because of some personal vendetta by someone I know, I still have nothing against DMOZ.

One thing we have to bear in mind is the quality of included sites. Check the quality of the included sites, they are not usually clean, at least from spammy texts that can make you feel nauseating.

Everywhere, all around the world, human beings will always be the same irrespective of race, colour, sex or creed. We all have emotions and respond to psychological pressures, though in varying degrees. The volunteers at DMOZ are not paid, so if there is some personal bias, it will always be limited. I am quite sure not all the rejected sites can be said they weren't included because of personal bias.

Besides, if the organization of DMOZ was that woeful as painted in some forums, Google would have either dumped them or developed their own version from scratch- and they have the resources to do it.

I would agree with some posts that supports an improvement on submitters' response. I think this will generally improve things.

To wit, when a body refuses to improve and feels too big, then newcomers are bound to set the pace. There are some directories littered across the web that are becoming quite as good as DMOZ. DMOZ may not be as invincible as it used to, but I still feel that DMOZ is the grand daddy.

Lastly, while not picking on anyone in particular, I have to bear my mind about one thing I detaste. These are people who have not really achieved much (if they have achieved something at all) making serious negative criticism of those have been there done it and dominated.

If DMOZ is as bad as been painted across the web, it's a free world, start yours, invest time and money, and if I may suggest, call it ZMOD and compete with your mouth and hands and let's see.

Either it's going to take another year to get accepted or rejected, I will freshen up and update my site and re-submit it again. DMOZ is an important place to have your site included. Simple.