Should DMOZ be regulated?

This is something that has been discussed internally and extrenally on many occasions and I think an overall consesnus was reached.

The 2 'main' reasons that is could be considered not to good an idea are these:

1: Such a script serves only the purpose of serving the webmaster (it is of no use to our users).
2 (and more importantly): It open the door to a lot more abuse.

The reason it opens ODP upto abuse is simply because everytime that persistent webmaster or SEO finds that his/her/clients site has been declined we would be subject to another co-ordinated attack of submissions. As it stands some only re-submit when they are told about the rejection which 'could' have been many months ago however with the ability to get an instant update it would seriously increase the amount of spam.

The domino effect is that the same 'ole people who have already been rejected keep submitting and keep getting rejected whilst at the same time constantly using the editor resources, who have to keep manually declining them**, and thus moving the editor focus away from the good sites that are in the pool.

**of course there is an option to create a sister script to delete automatically from the pile sites that are banned or completely wrong for DMOZ however this would never happen as site content changes and even sites we consider banned are still looked at, by a human, upon re-submission to verify the ban etc is still valid and appropriate. We as editors would not like to hand the human process of rejection/deletion over to automated scripts.

I think the idea itself is a good one and in theory not one that every editor is against - I think it is more the side effects that are a concern internally.

I know you will argue this point but your users are in fact webmasters. without their submissions the directory would grow much slower indeed. if at all.

If you really don't want webmasters then the ODP should rely ONLY on submissions by registered reviewers and drop the submission from external sources completely.



This could more than easily be dealt with by the same set of scripts. if a site has been declined then simply block it from resubmission for a suitable period. or have a script check it to see if its been rewritten (compare reviewed with new) combined with an enforced delay period it would stop such abuse.

If a domain is accused of abuse, then drop the entire domain for a set period.

If the ban period is set high enough say six months, that would make all webmasters think twice about abusing the system.

It would dramatically reduce the amount of abuse without any human intervention and without the loss of human control.

How the scripts would actually function is irrelavant but it can be done and with a moderate amount of input.
Heck put it to the open source community, you would have working scripts within a very short period of time.

I think, truly, you have very little understanding of how the cogs within DMOZ turn and this could be a general problem here and webmaster world throughout. The submission pool is the smallest of the sources available to editors. Most (and yes I truly mean most) of the listing are made by editors who physically search the net for quality sites. The reason they do that is the ration of good/bad sites is far more favourable when looking yourself. In other words the submission pool is that full of rubbish that it takes to long to find a 'gem'.

I will tell you now, in all honesty, there is a huge gatering of editors who would cheer very loudly if submission where completely turned off - never to return..... dissapear into yonder. It has been discussed however the only reason it was not turned off was simply because we may missing out on that 'one quality site' that we would not have found otherwise.

Many editors don't even look at the submission pool - they did not join to look at them and looking at them is not a condition of being an editor. Whether they add sites from the submission pool, the local newspaper, the back of a bus, and advert on the telly or searching on the net then that is all fine. But truthfully every other source is more reliable and provides better results that the submission pool.

I can see why on the outside submissions seem important and it can be hard to actually see how we get all of our links but submission really do play a small part in the growth - and that is a fact.



I see what you are saying but the human factor is very very important. A script cannot tell if the content has changed etc etc and we would never trust a script to make such decisions.



Again it is the human factor. Okay, many editors would like to punish the webmasters who abuse the directory, but in the true spirit of ODP it is not something that helps anyone. Next month the domain could be taken over, sold on, changed content etc etc and as such if listing it would help the user then we are happy. Not listing it under a ban would have gone against our beliefs.

I can see what you are saying and I am sure that some scripts of some sort could be used (infact some are but that internal and I won't go into that) but many of them have been discussed and considered and ruled out for very valid reasons but mainly coming back to the sole purpose of the directory.

If you include every other webmaster with me in that statement.
You have done NIL to reduce the perception of arrogance that comes from within DMOZ.
I find nowhere on DMOZ's submission pages a statement to the fact "We May or we May NOT even bother to look at your submission, Tough to you if we dont"
Little wonder so many people get upset by DMOZ.

And as far as the scripts go. No they would never replace human interaction. but if a site was re-submitted and the script said no changes were made then why bother review it again. it saves the editor time. If the script says the site changed by say 50% then a new review would be warranted.

DMOZ has grown from a community project to one that has been percieved as powerful. so regardless of what its aims are something that becomes too powerful and full of little demigods must be watched with extreme caution.
Please note. your comments have made me do an entire backflip on my attitude to DMOZ.

Now I can see why other ODP editors get annoyed and either stop posting or turn blunt.



What the heck have I said to make you feel that way? Sorry for telling the truth. Sorry for taking time out of my own life to try and explain things a little clearer.

Scripts have been spoken about on hundreds of occassions and way before I ever heard of DMOZ. I apologise that I, single handedly, cannot change the mind of all of the other thousands of editors. Editors do have lives outside of DMOZ and many of them, if not a large percentage of them, are in the field of webmaster/computer/programming industry so although many people feel that all editors can do is review sites they often do know what they talk about and also, if not, know a few other thousand editors who do. What I am tring to explain by saying this is that editors do not make decisions blindfolded.

There are scripts in place, infact there are many scripts in place, but there will never be a script that analyses a site that spiders a site for perentage of change. Even less than 1% could result in a listing or even a deeplink and while a script cannot make a decision it would be useless to implement.



This would mean that the sites that have 5-10,000 pages would need to change 2-5000 pages!!!! Crikey!! Yet a site with 2 pages of rubbish would only have to change a few words.

You forget that we don't just list URL's. We also list content. This means that a 10,000 page site may be rubbish on the whole but there is '1' article that the editor felt was very worthy of a listing; thus he/she decided to deeplink. Yet, if the script was in place, the adition of this article would not have been noticed, especially as it is contained within a larger site but the article is only short. This is a los in quality that would not be considered.

We have a lot of tools which do have a serious impact on the mount of submissions and how we process them (including one really cool new one - wwriten by an editor as are most of the tools) however I am afraid that it is probably as good as it is going to get on a ratio basis.

I am DMOZ editor and think it works well though I prefer the Zeal model.

Major head aches caused by bitching webmasters (with no content sites) on forums can be solved if we have a few automatic template emails for submissions.

eg:

1.Your site has been kept in un-reviewed until it has more content blb bla
2.Your site has not been included because of x y z

This has the bonus of not been given aggressive submitter tags because one of my sites has been given that and it not my fault the editor kept it in unrelieved for a few years waiting for content that it did eventually have but the tag will stay.

You said and I quote

So you are saying that our(webmaster collective) efforts to submit a site or page for submission could be wasted. Many webmasters put in a great deal of effort to make their submission and yet your ARE ADMITTING DMOZ treats them with less than the respect they deserve.
Earlier you claimed (in essence) Webmasters should not tar all editors with the same brush. That some in fact such as yourself are honest and forthwright. THEN you proceed to tar all webmasters with your own brush.
Added to that you drop the bombshell that "heck editors don't even need to look at your submission". So many webmasters are indeed simply wasting valuable time in a FALSE BELIEF that they will receive the attention they expect.
Given that, what do you expect from webmasters?

To get back to the scripting solutions. I realise you are just one voice amongst many. but I nor any other webmaster rates a voice at all. You all appear to treat us with scorn. so having put your head up in this forum expect someone like myself to take the opportunity to regale you with what we see as solutions.

In your example of a site with 5-10,000 pages either you are being deliberately pedantic or simply have not thought it through (I don't know which but I am starting to form an opinion). if a site was to resubmit don't you think it would be easier for the editor if he got a note along with the resubmission that said...
1/ No site changes
2/ pages z,y,z have changed all others unchanged

He/she would then only need to consider x,y & z without needing to wade through the other 4,997 pages.

This type of script is the VERY LEAST I would expect if I was an editor. I and I am sure you, don't have the time to waste wading through thousands of unchanged pages re-evaluating them.

Partly right yes! Whether the suggestion be a webmaster or member of the public they get treated like any other site the editor can see. And yes, many editors don't even look at the submissions.

The submissions are merely suggestions - nothing else.

If you have a good look around RZ then you will see what I mean. I did not become an editor to be a slave over people who submit sites - I became an editor to help build the directory and I, like any other editor, will do that in the way that we prefer and if that means looking in magazines or newspapers then that is my parogative. If I feel like looking at suggestion sent in, then fine also. Editors are under no obligation whatsoever to review submitted sites if they choose not to.

It is voluntary and wherever they find the sites is good! It is not that your time is not appreciated but we only offer the promise to review it when we can.

I am an editor for dmoz and not the webmaster.

If thats the case- and I actually do agree with this one.

Wouldn't it be better to switch off submissions, and open them for like one day a month - that way the submissions wouldn't build up - webmasters would be able to submit their sites still - editors would know that there was going to be a large amount of submissions on that day and could pull together to get them reviewed and out of the way quickly?

touce'

That is also something that many editor, me included, think would be a very good idea. Editors may well be considered to be the enemy but we are not nieve enough to know that there are some good (excellent infact) sites within the pool that we would love to include for our users and it would be excellent from my point of view to filter them out and start on a level playing field again.

I am not sure about a time period and how that could be introduced but switching off submissions (or should I re-iterate 'suggestions') until they fall below a certain level would definately get my vote.

I think only having submssions over a few days would have the effect of a DOS attack given the scale of submissions.

Switching off submissions would result in many more bogus applications to become an editor (and will then bugger off when their site is listed).

Dont shoot me for this but...
After reading the rezourse zone, though onestop took it to far i believe that he has a point in that the sites that are currently listed in the ODP directory where his was, are not better, nor have more content than his site given that was the reason you gave for his to be removed.
Almost makes me want to become an editor.

What is this "rezourse zone" you talk about?

have a look on page 2 of this post.