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.
41. Hi
Firstly, would mention that we are a localised non-profit organisation, supporting small business and community services, including website advice. No axe to grind, neither have we ever submitted a site.
DMOZ unfortunately is a topic we see a number of complaints on, primarily regarding the pointlessness of submission but a few rather worse. This led us to look closely about a year ago, study around 80 sites that were submitted and contact about 20 editors.
The 80 sites had all submitted at least 6 months prior to our contact. Some were not good but certainly around 20 or 30 were okay, about half of these excellent. Only 2 out of 80 had been included.
A closer study of and contact with some editors brought up a few points. Vested interest is an issue and without doubt, some do protect their own listing. Of the 19 we eventually spoke to on the phone, 3 agreed to list particular sites we quoted, in exchange for payment. Generally in the £200/$300 range.
Details of all the above were forwarded to several DMOZ email addresses, we never even received a reply.
Once again, we don't care as such, take no interest in DMOZ and neither should anyone else. A fantastic idea that served a purpose for a while, that idea unfortunately for the many good people who do give their time to DMOZ has corrupted and is near death.
Posted at 4:14PM on May 16th 2009 by Allan Roberts
42. Editors are forbidden from favouring their own sites or accepting payment in return for expediting the listing process. If you'd like us to investigate the editors in question, then please submit an abuse report using the form at http://report-abuse.dmoz.org/ . Reports submitted there will be investigated by one or more meta editors.
Emailing individual editors is not likely to be as effective, since they may not have sufficient privileges in the right areas, or just not have spare time to conduct an investigation. Using the abuse reporting system means the report can be seen by all meta editors, and also prevents any unscrupulous individuals sweeping it under the carpet.
Posted at 6:35PM on May 16th 2009 by chaos127
43. @chaos127 - People are keeping their comments relevant to the post? People are commenting on the 1st sentence in the Post- "Everybody loves Google, everybody loves Wikipedia - so why doesn't everybody love DMOZ?"
Same thing here. I tried to get my site as well as clients sites listed to no avail for years and heard nothing in return. I said maybe I should become an editor to help out since DMOZ might have been backed up. I got turned down twice. they're answer is usually "go to the forum to see possible reasons".
DMOZ is losing relevance because it doesn't give respect to their users. Wikipedia gives so much respect it trusts it's users to be editors and post (until the entry is double checked).
Give some RESPECT then maybe you'll get some.
Posted at 11:05PM on May 16th 2009 by Will
44. Dmoz? Whats that? Oh yeah that thing to get you to rank higher on google.
Posted at 4:13AM on May 18th 2009 by john doe
45. DMOZ is on it way to zero -- I agree with all other posts here. It seems it is a dead technology and directory. DMOZ listings are highly filtered and there is no global policy around them and depends on who feels what at what time of the day is when the editor decides to add the listings. We have requested to add our site which is the largest RSS feed directory in the world several times on various occasions and they listing has gone un-noticed.
Posted at 3:55PM on Jun 1st 2009 by Davoud Maha
46. Users submit a site and they don't receive any response whether it got approved or not - do you really think this is respectful?
I submitted an abuse report at http://report-abuse.dmoz.org/ - I reported a pretty obvious abuse where link to a site was added just to give it a backlink - spammy site from top to bottom. It's been ALMOST AN YEAR and everytime I check the ticket, the status is "NEW" - do you think this is respectful?
Now you are asking for respect, this must be a joke; just look at all the comments.
You don't ask for respect, respect is conquered
Posted at 2:53PM on Jun 2nd 2009 by tom
47. DMOZ is outdated, with many spammy sites owned by editors, while they DO NOT LIST competitors sites.
That is NOT shining.
Stop this OPAQUE behavior and put CLEAR rules and THEN and ONLY THEN DMOZ will have R-E-S-P-E-C-T fom internet community.
Posted at 1:12PM on Jun 3rd 2009 by Richard
48. As a Search Engine Optimiser, promoting clean and organic SEO, I often tried to submit sites, with high quality content. And very often i did not succeed. I even did not hear anything about the decision of the editor, to learn, how to do better. It seems, that there is the opinion, that commercial content is always low quality content an THAT is wrong! Many great resources are commercial, perhaps just to please seach engines and this would be Googles work and not the work of Dmoz!
If you really have rules for a working web, than make us follow them by TALKING to us, an by using them in your decisions. If you have no rules, GET SOME!
Posted at 7:35AM on Jun 8th 2009 by SzeneKonzept.de