Sep 24th 2007 3:00PM
Welcome To The DMOZ Blog
Hello and welcome to the new DMOZ blog, the official source for information, insight, and updates about DMOZ, the Open Directory Project ( ODP ).
DMOZ is made up of thousands of passionate, volunteer category enthusiasts and experts from all over the world who donate their time to arrange their respective portion of the web. Thanks to their work, DMOZ is a starting place for browsing and searching the web. DMOZ data is also used by thousands of search engines and web portals to help people quickly and easily find information on the web.
To paraphrase Mark Twain, the rumors of DMOZ's death have been greatly exaggerated.
The editor community is very much alive and thriving. Thousands of new sites are added and updated every week, and we continue to receive hundreds of editor applications and suggested sites every day.
We thought now was the right time to open the door and start a conversation with the Web community about what's happening with the largest human-edited directory.
We intend to use this blog to:
- Provide authentic messages about DMOZ and the efforts of our volunteer community.
- Highlight enhancements, both current and future.
- Allow editors to showcase their categories and describe, in their own words, why DMOZ is so important.
- Recruit new editors. If you have access to the Web and are passionate about a category, find out how to apply.
Additionally we want to hear from you.
What do you think about DMOZ? Why do you use the directory or data? Is there something you would like to see fixed? When you've been around as long as we have, some people are bound to have great things to say, while others might have a few choice words based on their personal experience. Either way, we want to hear it :)
We plan on posting every week so grab the RSS feed or sign up for an e-mail alert to receive notification of new entries as they are posted.
Bob Keating
Managing Editor, DMOZ Staff
DMOZ is made up of thousands of passionate, volunteer category enthusiasts and experts from all over the world who donate their time to arrange their respective portion of the web. Thanks to their work, DMOZ is a starting place for browsing and searching the web. DMOZ data is also used by thousands of search engines and web portals to help people quickly and easily find information on the web.
To paraphrase Mark Twain, the rumors of DMOZ's death have been greatly exaggerated.
The editor community is very much alive and thriving. Thousands of new sites are added and updated every week, and we continue to receive hundreds of editor applications and suggested sites every day.
We thought now was the right time to open the door and start a conversation with the Web community about what's happening with the largest human-edited directory.
We intend to use this blog to:
- Provide authentic messages about DMOZ and the efforts of our volunteer community.
- Highlight enhancements, both current and future.
- Allow editors to showcase their categories and describe, in their own words, why DMOZ is so important.
- Recruit new editors. If you have access to the Web and are passionate about a category, find out how to apply.
Additionally we want to hear from you.
What do you think about DMOZ? Why do you use the directory or data? Is there something you would like to see fixed? When you've been around as long as we have, some people are bound to have great things to say, while others might have a few choice words based on their personal experience. Either way, we want to hear it :)
We plan on posting every week so grab the RSS feed or sign up for an e-mail alert to receive notification of new entries as they are posted.
Bob Keating
Managing Editor, DMOZ Staff
21. I've been using dmoz for the past 3+ years mainly for SEO/SERP reasons. I would have to say that a more transparent approval process would be greatly appreciated by much of the webmasters. when submitted valid request to change a description, not just changing a description for SEO, you have no idea whats going on, if anyone ever going to or did look at it; its just goes into a black hole until one day your realize its been updated or it hasn't.
Also I'm very curious how you see DMOZ evolving in the next couple years now that language based/semantic web search is right around the corner. With the creation of search engine that understands language is there really a need for dmoz, other an to just annoy webmasters? maybe i'm missing the true nauture of the product.
in any event i've subscribed to your rss and curious to see whats to come.
Brian Harris, San Francisco, CA
http://www.digitalclimbing.com
Posted at 5:35PM on Sep 25th 2007 by Brian Harris
22. There is corruption in our schools, our churches, and our government - and these are institutions where the participants are not faceless, anonymous volunteers with nothing to lose except their editing privileges, which can be easily regained by reapplying with a different email address.
In the future, I hope that the corruption and coldness, is weeded out of the ODP.
Posted at 4:33PM on Oct 1st 2007 by daisy
23. Good luck with the blog DMOZ. I have few sites listed in your directory. :)
Posted at 2:12PM on Oct 2nd 2007 by MR-Gee
24. "I've been using dmoz for the past 3+ years mainly for SEO/SERP reasons. I would have to say that a more transparent approval process would be greatly appreciated by much of the webmasters. when submitted valid request to change a description, not just changing a description for SEO, you have no idea whats going on, if anyone ever going to or did look at it; its just goes into a black hole until one day your realize its been updated or it hasn't."
I can understand that. If an update request does not comply with our Guidelines, sometimes we'll try to rewrite it anyway(if we feel it can be improved on), but other times the request is so out of whack that we'll just delete the request.
We really don't have the time to contact the submitter and give a mini course about writing an ODP compliant description, or describe what was wrong with the request. We get many requests and our Guidelines are available to the public.
It would be nice if we had a system that would allow you to check on it yourself, but right now we have limited resources that are needed for more important tasks in the Directory.
Posted at 7:00PM on Sep 25th 2007 by crowbar
25. First of all, congratulations for the new blog. I am glad that you have decided a new approach to visitors and webmasters.
DMOZ is a respect directory, of course, but as every website in the world, it requires some changes to adapt to the new tendencies. Just some small suggestions: the navigation through the different categories and sub-categories is not intuitive and sometimes archaic, it definitely needs a face-lift; and the category of "World" does not fit in a web directory nowadays anymore, instead, there should be a portal for each language/region (If I am not mistaken, DMOZ is not just a U.S. directory, right?).
If we also get into the matter of the admission of websites, I think it should be much more friendly. The times of admission are too long and the webmaster should receive e-mails regarding to the status of the submission of the website. If the website is not accepted, he/she should receive a message with the complete reasons of that decision.
You guys have a great directory, but remember that for it to be an "open directory", needs to be completely open, and in that matter you still have a way to run.
Antonio Bustamante - Madrid, Spain
http://www.tecnobot.com
Posted at 7:17PM on Sep 25th 2007 by Antonio Bustamante
26. Good to see DMOZ taking a (long awaited) step forward in the right direction.
P.S. The links above the search box at the top do not work.
Posted at 7:20PM on Sep 25th 2007 by WEBOSIS
27. "It's great you opened up this avenue of communication. My main suggestion is that you communicate better with those who submit sites."
If a site owner contacts me politely, I will always respond to them out of courtesy, but, many of us have had less than pleasant experiences doing that, including threats against ourselves and our families, so we are encouraged not to.
Editors are just ordinary people volunteering our free time, not employees. I think all of us would enjoy being of help to you, everybody wants to be liked, but we all work for a living and have limited time.
Posted at 7:28PM on Sep 25th 2007 by crowbar
28. "In the future, I hope that the corruption and coldness, is weeded out of the ODP."
Corruption does exist, and I know that because editors get caught doing it and become ex-editors very quickly, but it isn't as wide spread as many seem to think.
It hurts all of us any time one is found because 99.9% of us are honest and a crooked editor is a big slap in the face to all of us. It's sickening. We hate crooked editors, they've betrayed a trust.
As far as what you call our coldness, I suppose that after answering the same questions over and over, the answers which can be found in our FAQ or our Guidelines, I suppose we do get a little cold sounding when we state the facts or have to tell someone no.
That really is our fault and I find myself doing it unconsciously sometimes and forgetting that I'm talking to a person and not just answering a written question or statement. I apologize for that, :).
Sometimes I sound like I'm giving a speech, too, I don't mean to, I just slip into it.
We are sympathetic to your frustrations, or I'd be in watching Fox, instead of typing with one finger.
Posted at 8:21PM on Sep 25th 2007 by crowbar
29. Thanks crowbar, I believe some of what you are saying, I'm actually an editor myself since 2003, and I believe that the kind, intelligent, and honest editors do outweigh the rude, ignorant, and corrupt, but it isn't 99.9% vs. .1%. I wish it were.
Posted at 8:39PM on Sep 25th 2007 by daisy
30. Would you be able to highlight or otherwise indicate those posting officially as staff in replies? It is hard to make out who are users and who are staff and which are offical DMOZ replies. Thanks and this is a really welcome addition.
Posted at 10:06PM on Sep 25th 2007 by reprint
31. Bob,
I look forward to hearing great news about the directory. This will be great if a renewed interest in providing quality will come of this.
Posted at 10:53PM on Sep 25th 2007 by Stephen Pitts
32. I recognize that you will be innundated with complaints about webmasters submitting sites and corruption within DMOZ. As both a webmaster and a former editor I can attest to both these issues being true - there is vast preferential treatment abound in DMOZ which is a serious problem.
I made this suggestion at the resources forum years ago and still stand by it. I believe a vast majority of the problems in regards to DMOZ are that the editors and the real webmasters are not being in contact readily enough. If real webmasters had a chance to talk to real editors, then perhaps both corruption and the long wait times would be slightly eliminated. And the only way to do this, in my opinion, is to charge webmasters a minor fee for submission (something like five or ten dollars). Alternatively, you can use the same process of certification that Google and Yahoo do to ensure that the submitter is in fact the owner of the domain (using a meta tag or hosted file).
Either way, if your intention is to survive in the long term and not only that, but provide a strong directory of choice you need to add new technologies to eliminate the only problem that slows down all the other processes: Spammed sites.
Posted at 12:48AM on Sep 26th 2007 by Decius
33. The end of my last post was cut off. I'll try again.
The truth is, if we (editors) were employees instead of volunteers a great percentage of us would have
been fired long ago, for inappropriate or self serving behaviors, or just for not doing our jobs very well.
On that note, a huge percentage of us would never have been hired in the first place.
The things that are going on, whether due to corruption or ignorance would never be tolerated in any sort of professional organization.
Posted at 11:15PM on Sep 25th 2007 by daisy
34. Would you be publishing this blog in multiple languages, maybe translated by the volunteer editors?
Posted at 11:40PM on Sep 25th 2007 by codepoet
35. Good move.
To an outsider DMOZ is a directory with a long waiting list. The community keeps wondering why it takes so much time. Hope lot of interaction here for a better tomorrow.
Posted at 11:45PM on Sep 25th 2007 by smo
36. Congratulation to all AOL Staff - After resource zone, this blog also help to dmoz friends. Newletter is also nice option to get information.
thanks
Posted at 1:02AM on Sep 26th 2007 by Paavan Solanki
37. What is the point of having a blog and comment if you are going to censor it like internal forum and RZ?
Posted at 3:14AM on Sep 26th 2007 by Julian
38. This is great! Thanks to Staff.
Posted at 7:48AM on Sep 26th 2007 by organic
39. A nice feature in dmoz would be to have a page which shows the latest sites added to the directory (by cat.) or maybe a (new) next to the site listed in each cat.
Posted at 9:42AM on Sep 26th 2007 by htdawg
40. launched my posts to DMOZ a couple of years ago, but never was blessed with a listing. come back to earth DMOZ.
Posted at 7:07AM on Sep 26th 2007 by Paul Dimeo