Do you trust DMOZ?

[John Scott]

Just curious here. After reading about Peter D's directory being listed by the founder of the ODP, and then delisted when Doug Heil complained, I gotta ask, do you trust DMOZ's judgment?

Do you believe that they are indeed trying to list as many qualified websites as they can and create "The Definitive Catalog of the Web", or do you believe editors work to not list as many websites as possible?

[veridicus]

It just feels too secretive at the moment to trust it. Who knows the real motivations of the editors?

[Mong]

I don't trust DMOZ because there are dozens of porn websites listed there :@
But i love to be get listed because it means good chances of getting uv abd multiple high page rank inbound links

[John Scott]

Getting listed is always good, but that isn't the question.

[Antonio]

Originally Posted by Mong

I don't trust DMOZ because there are dozens of porn websites listed there :@
But i love to be get listed because it means good chances of getting uv abd multiple high page rank inbound links

agree.

dmoz list too many meaningless and dead sites.

some are too easy to be got in and some are too hard

[etech-peter]

Well, looking at the type and quality of sites getting listed in DMOZ, it would be fair not to trust the judgement of DMOZ.

[irka]

Originally Posted by JohnScott

Getting listed is always good, but that isn't the question.

Amazing that everybody voted no... How come it is so popular and so untrust like that?

I think that nobody trust dmoz because they 'can't' have their website listed inside of their web directory (obviously not everybody or it would be and empty directory) . Perhaps that sounds absurd but thats feel i see it.

Anyway i don't want to promote DMOZ i voted no , since i saw minstrel blog and DP thread about DMOZ and cherry boys site... *sigh*...

[Ferre]

Although I have a few sites listed in DMOZ I do not trust their editor's judgement at all. I had the THC Ministry's site listed in the correct catagory, which is religion, as the site is representing a religion with thousands of members world wide. One day I found that the editor of the religion catagory where it was listed had moved the listing to drugs > Cannabis, which is NOT the correct catagory and I contacted the editor to notify him about the error on his side. NO responce and it's still listed in the wrong catagory.

This editor clearly discriminates my religion by listing it under "drugs" and a little research on my end reveiled that the dude is a member of a religion that opposes mine. Editors on DMOZ have the possibility to discriminate based upon their own belief system which isn't supposed to be.

Another site, a popular podcast radio site was rejected because, as an editor put it; 'there was no content' while the content is podcasts and gets updated nearly every single day and the site is very clear about that, it also happens to be one of the most popular podcast sites in my country, despite the DMOZ editors lack of understanding about this phenomina and the podcast catagory on DMOZ being nearly empty.

At the other hand I see some very spammy commercial sites being listed with several different pages in several different catagories, not to mention the porn.

If it wasn't for the google directory taking over the listings at DMOZ this directory would be ignored by me, in my view it's about time that Google's directory becomes independent from DMOZ when it comes down to their listings, it would break the arrogance that DMOZ displays.

[G10]

Nope,

I strongly believe that feelings can get in the way with things like this and the process should be automated / paid for.

Once feelings get in the way of decisions, the directory slowly starts to become invalid and secondary to it's original purpose of making a non-biased human based listing directory.

Though it still is a good place to be listed, wow many actually believe that it is completely unbiased?

[veridicus]

I've had a website up for over 3 years criticizing Microsoft. It's over 200 pages mostly written by myself and all with full references back to sources of information. My point is that it's a legit site.

Yet I've never been able to get it listed in DMOZ while other newer anti-Microsoft sites are listed. And many of those sites are just one page of "I hate Microsoft" on geocities, aol, or elsewhere. It makes no sense.

[jim_noble]

The listing suggestion of 2004-07-18 is awaiting evaluation. I can't find any evidence of earlier ones. Whois says

Domain Name:MSVERSUS.ORG
Created On:28-Jun-2004 19:40:55 UTC

The now defunct http://www.mattschwartz.net was suggested to an anti MS cat about 3 years ago. Perhaps that was what you were thinking of.

[G10]

Hi Jim, how's it going dude

I know veridicus said over 3 years (maybe an exageration ) but 2 years is still something though.

I know that a lot of you guys do a good job managing your categories but I do believe that a system should be in place where al cats are managed properly as there are cats where maybe someone hasn't looked at for a long time and it just stays stagnant for ages.

I don't fully know the ins and outs of it but as it is a good place to be listed, maybe some sort of paid for system may help.

We have Yahoo, granted, it's very expensive but it seems to go a little smoother.

[veridicus]

Thanks for looking that up, Jim! I forgot I originally ran it on my personal domain and moved it about a year later.

So it's still been waiting since July of 2004. With dmoz's claim of 72,089 editors that seems like an awfully long wait, no?

[jim_noble]

We have around 8000 editors. The big number is the count of people who are or have been editors in the past.

It was moved last September to a better category (Society/Issues/Business/Allegedly_Unethical_Firms/Microsoft) where it awaits further evaluation.

[stoner3221]

Originally Posted by jim_noble

We have around 8000 editors. The big number is the count of people who are or have been editors in the past.

It was moved last September to a better category (Society/Issues/Business/Allegedly_Unethical_Firms/Microsoft) where it awaits further evaluation.

The last thing I would want to publicly announce was being a meta editor. I would rather announce be a sexual offender.

[jim_noble]

Whatever floats your boat

[G10]

Originally Posted by stoner3221

The last thing I would want to publicly announce was being a meta editor. I would rather announce be a sexual offender.

stoner, don't go there dude,

I am also a little peeved that my site isn't listed but Jim has answered my questions on their forum and I know he pulls his weight over there and I don't really want to see comments like that as it's unfair to tarnish everyone with the same brush dude.

Some of them actually do a good job and yes, some of them do care.

I just happen to get the idiot who doesn't update his cat

[James Trotta]

I don't trust their judgement in selecting new editors. The editor(s) of the ESL category are doing a piss poor job IMHO and a year or two back I offered my help. The application took a decent chunk of time and was rejected. Why? Because "ESL is way too big of a category for a new editor."

OK, then why have the application link on the page if no new editors are being considered? And anyway, judging from the crappy job job the current editor had been doing, I know I would have done a much better job.

[veridicus]

Thanks Jim. I really do appreciate the response.

The two categories "Allegedly Unethical Firms: Microsoft" and "Anti-Corporation: Microsoft" are extremely similar. I can't see any common differentiating factor between the links in each.

[G10]

I totally understand James but try doing a better job as a volunteer for years where all you get is people hassling you all the time. I know that it would probably start grinding me down sooner or later.

BTW - I am not defending them here, I am just putting myself in their shoes and can totally see how sooner or later, it would begin to grind.

I couldn't do it. - I'll just stick to my side of the fence and keep hassling them