May 4th 2009 6:29PM
R-E-S-P-E-C-T for DMOZ
For our latest post, editor glippitt has provided an excellent example of a place where DMOZ's resources shine. Enjoy!
Emily
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Everybody loves Google, everybody loves Wikipedia - so why doesn't everybody love DMOZ? Ask people how they search the web, and most will tell you what Google does well, what Wikipedia does well - and what DMOZ doesn't do well. When you think about it, that's quite an odd way to look at search vehicles, isn't it? My car doesn't do backflips, but that doesn't mean I stop driving. I also can't take a plane to my local shopping area, ride a bicycle across the ocean, or take a train where there aren't train tracks.
Let's look at what DMOZ does do well, and the when and how of using various search vehicles to help users find what they're looking for.
Perhaps you heard something on the news about the Somali pirates and want to learn more. You'd likely search Google News for the most recent coverage, perhaps sorting by date. Background information? You might read Piracy in Somalia in Wikipedia and search for Somali pirates with Google web search. Now what about Somalia in general? How did it get to this point? What's the history of the country, and what's going on with their government? How do you find answers to these questions without wasting a lot of time? This is where DMOZ shines.
Google for Somalia or history of Somalia or government of Somalia and you'll get a mixed bag. Google combines relevance with popularity, which means the more specific your query, the better the results. For broader sorts of queries, some excellent sources may be ranked low and you may miss them. Some links from special interest groups may be popular enough to be ranked high, but that doesn't mean they're providing a balanced view. Some less-than-current sources may be ranked high simply because they've been around a long time and lots of other sites have linked to them in the past. Sometimes they use 'relevant' keywords and page titles to game the system and achieve a higher ranking than they really deserve. Look at this result from that last Google search:
Looks current, right? Wrong. Click on it and you may realize it's the site of warlord Abdinur Darman who declared himself President in 2007 - but Google's automated process has no way of knowing that, and if you don't look closely you may be misled into thinking it's from the current government. (The true official site was unavailable for much of April because it had run out of bandwidth.) To avoid confusion, DMOZ has now listed the link with this description: Site of presidential claimant Abdinur Ahmed Darman, the leader of Somalia's Hawiya clan who declared himself head of state in July 2003. Google (and others) may later pick up that description and use it in their search results instead of the current snippet. We all want users to have the correct information.
Other Google options? You can find authoritative sources by searching Google Scholar for Somalia, but that isn't necessarily the level of information you want.
What about Somalia (and its sub-articles) in Wikipedia? Articles 'in the news' often draw 'strong-minded partisans' as editors, so while the information may be interesting one would want to chase down all the footnotes to determine if they reference reliable sources accurately summarized - and if the reliable sources are truly representative, or if they were 'cherry-picked' to shade the view - which means you're back to Google to find what might be missing. All this for just the most current version on Wikipedia. Click on the history and discussion tabs and see how often the article has been changed and if there are 'edit wars' going on. Wikipedia is useful, but it doesn't fill every need and it certainly isn't the only source one should rely on, particularly on controversial topics.
Or, you can go to DMOZ's Somalia category. Start with Guides and Directories to find background information. Perhaps you're interested in Government sites. If you're curious about local and foreign efforts to help the country, you can view Aid and Development and Economic Development. Perhaps you want to check out the local News or look at some Maps and Views. Some Travel Guides have useful information about a country. You can also move your search up to West Africa and Africa, or down to the regions within Somalia such as Somaliland.
You'll notice some Somalia categories from the DMOZ Topical directory, such as Colleges and Universities and Soccer, are 'linked in' to Regional. 'Sharing' these categories helps people searching for the same information, but starting from a different point or point of view. There are also links to the associated categories in the World directories (such as French) and the Kids and Teens directory.
There's all sorts of relevant information to be found on the web, and the broader the topic the more useful DMOZ is. Use it as one of your search vehicles and you may be surprised how much more efficient and productive your searches become. Just don't expect it to be the perfect combination Mars rover-car-plane-scooter-train-bicycle. There's no such thing as a silver bullet in search - not even Google.
Emily
- - - - - - - - - -
Everybody loves Google, everybody loves Wikipedia - so why doesn't everybody love DMOZ? Ask people how they search the web, and most will tell you what Google does well, what Wikipedia does well - and what DMOZ doesn't do well. When you think about it, that's quite an odd way to look at search vehicles, isn't it? My car doesn't do backflips, but that doesn't mean I stop driving. I also can't take a plane to my local shopping area, ride a bicycle across the ocean, or take a train where there aren't train tracks.
Let's look at what DMOZ does do well, and the when and how of using various search vehicles to help users find what they're looking for.
Perhaps you heard something on the news about the Somali pirates and want to learn more. You'd likely search Google News for the most recent coverage, perhaps sorting by date. Background information? You might read Piracy in Somalia in Wikipedia and search for Somali pirates with Google web search. Now what about Somalia in general? How did it get to this point? What's the history of the country, and what's going on with their government? How do you find answers to these questions without wasting a lot of time? This is where DMOZ shines.
Google for Somalia or history of Somalia or government of Somalia and you'll get a mixed bag. Google combines relevance with popularity, which means the more specific your query, the better the results. For broader sorts of queries, some excellent sources may be ranked low and you may miss them. Some links from special interest groups may be popular enough to be ranked high, but that doesn't mean they're providing a balanced view. Some less-than-current sources may be ranked high simply because they've been around a long time and lots of other sites have linked to them in the past. Sometimes they use 'relevant' keywords and page titles to game the system and achieve a higher ranking than they really deserve. Look at this result from that last Google search:
| Quote: |
| "somalia: the official news from the government of somalia - 9:11am Somalia: Somali Pirates holding over 200 hostages. www.somaligovernment.org/ - 29k" |
Looks current, right? Wrong. Click on it and you may realize it's the site of warlord Abdinur Darman who declared himself President in 2007 - but Google's automated process has no way of knowing that, and if you don't look closely you may be misled into thinking it's from the current government. (The true official site was unavailable for much of April because it had run out of bandwidth.) To avoid confusion, DMOZ has now listed the link with this description: Site of presidential claimant Abdinur Ahmed Darman, the leader of Somalia's Hawiya clan who declared himself head of state in July 2003. Google (and others) may later pick up that description and use it in their search results instead of the current snippet. We all want users to have the correct information.
Other Google options? You can find authoritative sources by searching Google Scholar for Somalia, but that isn't necessarily the level of information you want.
What about Somalia (and its sub-articles) in Wikipedia? Articles 'in the news' often draw 'strong-minded partisans' as editors, so while the information may be interesting one would want to chase down all the footnotes to determine if they reference reliable sources accurately summarized - and if the reliable sources are truly representative, or if they were 'cherry-picked' to shade the view - which means you're back to Google to find what might be missing. All this for just the most current version on Wikipedia. Click on the history and discussion tabs and see how often the article has been changed and if there are 'edit wars' going on. Wikipedia is useful, but it doesn't fill every need and it certainly isn't the only source one should rely on, particularly on controversial topics.
Or, you can go to DMOZ's Somalia category. Start with Guides and Directories to find background information. Perhaps you're interested in Government sites. If you're curious about local and foreign efforts to help the country, you can view Aid and Development and Economic Development. Perhaps you want to check out the local News or look at some Maps and Views. Some Travel Guides have useful information about a country. You can also move your search up to West Africa and Africa, or down to the regions within Somalia such as Somaliland.
You'll notice some Somalia categories from the DMOZ Topical directory, such as Colleges and Universities and Soccer, are 'linked in' to Regional. 'Sharing' these categories helps people searching for the same information, but starting from a different point or point of view. There are also links to the associated categories in the World directories (such as French) and the Kids and Teens directory.
There's all sorts of relevant information to be found on the web, and the broader the topic the more useful DMOZ is. Use it as one of your search vehicles and you may be surprised how much more efficient and productive your searches become. Just don't expect it to be the perfect combination Mars rover-car-plane-scooter-train-bicycle. There's no such thing as a silver bullet in search - not even Google.
1. Nice post glippitt. Thank you :)
- A (not hidden) former editor -
Posted at 4:19AM on May 5th 2009 by Damien
2. Respect is a mutual thing, between humans. You get it 1) when you deserve it on objective grounds and 2) when you reciprocate it. What goes around comes around, I guess.
Posted at 10:05AM on May 5th 2009 by oriste
3. Well DMOZ is quite like a black box. I think you should work more on the communication, add more interaction. When somebody submits a site, after pushing the submit button then it's the black hole. Even for the editor application, there is no answer, no tracking on the process of validation(well at least in my case)
Posted at 4:43PM on May 5th 2009 by yvon
4. Who's to say that DMOZ editors are more reliable and able to provide links that are balanced? Especially when there are so few of them, compared to a site like Wikipedia for example. Just a quick look into some of the categories in which I specialize (dating advice), there is noticeable gaming of the directory, some with scarcely any content and most importantly it's lacking of some of the most authoritative up to date sites on the web.
The fact that Wikipedia opens it's doors to everyone, helps them to create a democratic like checks and balance system which is what makes it useful, relevant and popular. DMOZ is the complete opposite, a closed system controlled by a minority of people, extremely difficult to participate in and unheard of by the general population. Seriously, I don't know anyone who uses DMOZ to find information.
I'm sorry but DMOZ simply cannot and will not become a useful resource unless it OPENS it's doors!
Many people try to participate here either by suggesting sites or becoming editors only to get turned down without explanation or reason. Perhaps DMOZ should start showing a little respect first before asking for it.
Posted at 10:37PM on May 5th 2009 by Matt
5. Your first sentence betrays your complete lack of self awareness and of reality. DMOZ is a great resource for the reasons you have listed. But many of the people that could help spread the word about you guys are completely turned off by your lack of respect for those who submit sites for your review. Whoever is in charge of this site should be held accountable for not holding internal folks accountable to keep service levels where they should be. At minimum, you should be responsive to submissions. Your site is a black hole. Fix that, and everyone will love DMOZ.
Posted at 10:19PM on May 5th 2009 by Jim Francis
6. I saw a definition on the Alternate Webmaster Glossary (http://www.experienced-people.co.uk/1099-webmaster-glossary/) of ODP: That place where you submit a site and forget about it. (And they forget about it too).
That's what webmasters think of the ODP.
The people most likely to take your message of DMOZ being a good place to search are - webmasters! I appreciate you feel you have no need to cultivate them, reply to their crap submissions that don't follow the guidelines or even interact with them or reply to their mail. And, for the purposes of what DMOZ does - you don't. But if you want to get "popular" as a search tool you want these people on board singing your praises in blogs, on their sites and within their online and offline networks. Somehow the DMOZ model needs to incorporate webmasters as valued submitters and devote some of the (admittedly already stretched) manpower to providing them with "Customer Service". I know, I know, it won't happen - half your editors would leave if you tried something like that! :)
Posted at 7:47AM on May 6th 2009 by Will
7. If DMOZ wants respect, its needs to reciprocate the same to its users.
I appreciate there is a shortage of ediors but unless DMOZ engages with its users, then it will continue to lack appeal for submissions from website owners.
I agree with Yvon above - fix the black hole, get responsive and you may regain that R--E-S-P-E-C-T you want.
Posted at 8:43AM on May 6th 2009 by Robert Carpenter
8. DMOZ doesn't deserve respect, and it hasn't since the late 1990s. From being one of the best places to find information in the pre-search engine craze, it became a corrupt circle of backlinkers who become editors to submit their own sites, accept under-the-table bribes to submit others' sites (just search DigtalPoint on this topic) and provide zero assistance to the community in terms of accepting new sites.
There's not even a strict policy to cut worthless editors who approve 2-3 mediocre sites and shoe horn their own backlink in, then never return again (which is probably a majority of the editors at this point). Not to mention, the lesser known categories which have little activity and have been left neglected because of long-gone editors. Gross unprofessionalism. I think Google's actions of no longer recommending ODP spoke volumes.
Posted at 11:27AM on May 6th 2009 by Mark
9. Maybe we'd respect DMOZ a little more if the editors actually did their job. When you have a high quality website that you simple can't get into the directory after years and years of following your guidelines and submitting every few months - one loses a little respect for the ODP.
Get with the program or quit whining about lack of respect.
Posted at 11:33AM on May 6th 2009 by Everett
10. DMOZ also needs to deal effectively with allegations of corruption from bloggers such as Shoemoney
Posted at 11:58AM on May 6th 2009 by James
11. DMOZ rejects new editors without explanation and rarely responds or adds new websites submitted by users to categories.
And you're surprised you don't get the respect you want?
Try actually adding websites your users submit as valuable and you might actually earn it.
DMOZ has lost any focus it once had on becoming a useful directory - that's your problem.
Posted at 2:34PM on May 6th 2009 by Jeff Reason
12. You're kidding right? Have you heard the phrase, "to get respect you have to give respect?"
DMOZ has lost total focus of what they wanted to become by treating users who wanted to help like garbage.
I had a genuine interest in a specific category and didn't own a single website or company associated with it. The category was painfully out of date and badly in need of a refresh. I applied to be an editor and was rejected in 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, the great sites I submitted to be in the category have never been added and I never received a response.
It seems I'm not alone based on the previous comments.
Posted at 2:53PM on May 6th 2009 by Jeff Reason
13. In addition to the very relevant suggestions above is the fact that so many webmasters and small business owners ,who were told that submitting to DMOZ was good, have had similarly bad experiences over the last decade. Now that a large chunk of them are dispensing advice to younger users its no surprise that they are ignoring DMOZ or worse.
Would you tell a close friend to call the same plumber who made you wait for two days and then over charged you?
DMOZ gets no respect because it hasn't given any for a very, very long time and isn't likely to change that.
Posted at 5:15PM on May 6th 2009 by Enzo
14. Having read the comments, I am not surprised that I can not find a way to update my URL. The category I am listed in has no editor and the two other editors i tried to email had an e-mail error. There is no other way to contact DMOZ except maybe this blog.
If anybody knows a way to contact DMOZ please let me know.
Pia Kanholm
Posted at 6:24PM on May 6th 2009 by Pia Kanholm
15. The reason people are not having hopes on dmoz is because you folks never reply.
I have been adding our sites for the past 3 years, not a single response. Tried becoming an editor, no response.
BG Mahesh
Posted at 1:01AM on May 7th 2009 by BG Mahesh
16. In a nutshell:
You have gotten a reputation that is now widespread and flowing like any other viral entity. At this stage of the game, I highly doubt you are going to contain or dispose of the taint. It would require a complete revamp of how you operate. People above have already pointed out the obvious reasons a crappy reputation follows dmoz and will continue to pertetuate indefinately, so I will not go over all the problem, but will point out the biggest 2: no communication, and corruption.
Posted at 7:36AM on May 7th 2009 by William Cross
17. I do love Dmoz now that I see what it is all about. I never knew it existed before this. It seems like a very respected site.
Posted at 1:03PM on May 7th 2009 by Chris
18. Yeah, I would give DMOZ all the respect in the world if you'd list my submissions - it has been years now for some and still nothing. These are good, valid local business websites plus my own web design website. What gives?
Posted at 5:03PM on May 7th 2009 by claye
19. You all have had and continue to have the absolute worst reputation of any site on the web. No organization, no authority, no communication, no value, the service you provide(whenever you actually do anything) is of zero value.
How can you morons with a straight face tell people to submit websites and then tell them that IF you will review their submissions it may take years, IF you decide to do so at all. Do us all a favor, turn off the submission links and stop with the farce. Tens of thousands of site of significant value are ignored because of you morons and your holy than thou attitude. The fact of the matter is you ARE ALL DONE. DMOZ provides no value to search engine rankings, Google has abandoned you and SO HAS EVERYONE ELSE.
You dug your grave now lie in it.
(grabbing shovel)
Posted at 11:57PM on May 7th 2009 by Dave
20. Has anyone noticed that the editors haven't bothered to respond to any of the comments?
Proof positive that they really don't care.
I've been trying to add our site - the largest online Catholic store online - for six years. I was told once about four years ago that the site had been added but they lied.
Posted at 1:21PM on May 8th 2009 by Ian