DMOZ Blog

Categories in the Spotlight, March Edition

Emily — 2011-03-14T18:33:00+00:00

Hi Everyone!

Today we're happy to bring you the first in an occasional series of posts which will highlight some DMOZ categories on popular, noteworthy and breaking news topics.

Enjoy!
Emily

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The 2011 Christchurch Earthquake and the 2011 Cricket World Cup
An aftershock of the 2010 earthquake, the quake that struck the Canterbury region of New Zealand's South Island at 12:51 pm on 22 February 2011 local time was more destructive and deadlier than its predecessor. The epicenter of the 6.3-magnitude quake was two kilometers west of the port village of Lyttelton and ten kilometers southeast of Christchurch. Hundreds have been reported dead or missing and estimates of the damage exceed NZ$16 billion.

Editor bldarter has collected a comprehensive set of listings, including RSS feeds, covering the disaster and its aftermath: Christchurch NZ 2011.

In an interview, Pete Dawson told Television New Zealand, "We'll rebuild. Of course, we will. We're resilient people, we're Cantabrians, you know. And we've got a World Cup to look forward to."

As if on cue, bldarter also provides DMOZ's 2011 Cricket World Cup coverage.

The 2010 Copiapo Mining Accident
On August 5, 2010, the San Jose mine, 28 miles north of Copiapo, Chile collapsed trapping thirty-three miners 2,300 feet underground. On October 13, 2010, after sixty-nine days underground, all thirty-three miners were rescued.

The story doesn't end there. The news media and a blogger bring us the miners' continuing stories: 2010 Copiapo Mining Accident.

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
A musical comedy mini-series, it is the story of Dr. Horrible (Neil Patrick Harris) on his mission to become a true villain and join the elite Evil League of Evil, all while enamoured with his love interest Penny (Felicia Day), and impeded by his nemesis Captain Hammer (Nathan Fillion). In addition to the mini-series there is a series of comic books, some of which centre around the supporting characters.

Directed by Joss Whedon and written during the 2007-2008 Writers Guild of America strike, the story was created as an inexpensive mini-series to show a professional production could be produced without the assistance of big corporations. Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog was aired online July 15-19, 2008. Early the following year, a special in-character appearance aired during the 2009 Emmy Awards. Emmy Award winning, the series also won a Hugo award for Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form), the People's Choice Awards USA for Favorite Online Sensation, and seven Streamy Awards.

Enjoy the category Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, created by editor shadowlight.

Author Laura Hillenbrand
Laura Hillenbrand's first book, Seabiscuit: An American Legend (2001) tells the account of Seabiscuit, the unlikely champion racehorse owned by a former bicycle mechanic, trained by reticent "Silent Tom", ridden by a jockey beset by bad luck and life-threatening injuries. Seabiscuit captured the hearts of Americans during the Great Depression. The bestselling book was made into a movie in 2003.

Hillenbrand's second book, Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, released in November, 2010, tells the story of Louis Zamperini, a runner whose Olympic aspirations were interrupted by World War II. A bombadier on a B-42, he survived a plane crash and was adrift in the Pacific Ocean for 47 days before being captured and held as a prisoner of war until the war ended. The screen rights to the book, a New York Times bestseller and named top book of 2010 by Time, have been acquired by Universal Pictures.

Find out more about this author who not only has written two bestsellers but done so while incapacitated by illness: Laura Hillenbrand

Japan Earthquake
Within hours of the disaster, editors had compiled listings of sites providing information about the earthquake and the tsunami it triggered, including news sites in Japan: Sendai, Japan 2011 and, thanks to afsitalia, 2011 - Séisme et tsunami au Japon.

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2010 Editor & Community Achievements

Emily — 2011-02-04T12:50:00+00:00

International Growth & Expansion
Expansion of World/Ukrainian
During 2010, the number of listed sites in the World/Ukrainian branch increased by approximately 50% and Editor School was offered for the first time in this branch. Additionally, two editors attained high-level permissions in this area: one was granted access to the top level and the other received CatMod permissions.

Editor Promotions in World/Russian
The World/Russian branch promoted a team of senior editors (CatMod and Editall permission levels). These editors are ilyawww, raouf, tanstaaf1, vader and valeryiv. This is an important step for the Russian branch and ODP overall.

Addition of New Language Branches
Last year, salis created four new language branches including World/Kyrgyz, World/O'zbekcha, World/Türkmençe, and World/Uyghurche. In 2010, editors completed work to add World/Bashkir to the directory, and this language was activated in January 2011.

Tool Development Work
The editor community builds and maintains tools to help improve editing processes. During 2010, editors chaos127, development, jtaylorj, plantrob and rpfuller all worked to upgrade critical editor tools to keep directory processes running smoothly.

Personal Editor Milestones
Editor Anniversaries
We had a number of editors who celebrated their tenth anniversary with the directory in 2010. Congratulations on a decade of service go out to the following editors: albinfo, anthronet, bkalafut, boni, eddiep, edseward, ikw, jdaw1, kokopeli, liszt, mcowley, mngolden, motsa, ock, pvgool, rd232, sammy, smoorefu, stn77 and sutty.

Special Thanks...
For the past two years, we've had several editors who have worked collaboratively with our AOL Staff team to provide an editorial perspective to our ongoing projects and processes. Photofox, plantrob and sthenbelle's contributions have been invaluable, and we're very grateful that they have given additional time and effort as editor liaisons.

In Memoriam
Sadly, editor cicka passed away in 2010. She was a Catmod in both World/Srpski and World/Magyar. Her contributions to the directory were numerous, and included opening a new Editor School for World/Srpski. She will be greatly missed.

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Happy Holidays from DMOZ!

Emily — 2010-12-22T16:18:00+00:00

Hi Everyone!

The editor community has collaborated to prepare the following post to wish you Happy Holidays. We hope you enjoy and we look forward to seeing you in 2011!

Emily

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Happy Holidays to all our users from the staff and editors at DMOZ.

This time of year is often the time for reflection of the year gone by. The highs and the lows, the joys and the pain of events that have passed through our lives.

There definitely has been some doom and gloom throughout the year especially
with the global financial crisis but hopefully this may get better with the new
year for all of us.

Why not research the traditions of Christmas and New Year by diving in and
looking at our categories and find out information about this time of year by
simply flicking through the sites we have on offer. For example, by just going
to Home/Cooking/Holidays/Christmas/ you will see "Eggnog@" This is a link to
Home/Cooking/Beverages/Eggnog/. If you needed to know about Eggnog, we
have 17 delicious recipes that will help get your festive party off to a great start.

Here are some of our Yuletide categories:

Home/Cooking/Holidays/Christmas/
Home/Entertaining/Holidays/Christmas/
Shopping/Holidays/Christmas
Society/Holidays/Christmas
Society/Holidays/New_Year
Kids_and_Teens/People_and_Society/Holidays_and_Special_Days/Christmas/
Kids_and_Teens/International/Français/Société/Fêtes/Noël/
Kids_and_Teens/International/Español/Sociedad_y_gente/Festividades/Na vidad/
Kids_and_Teens/International/Japanese/人と社会/一年の行事/クリスマス/
Kids_and_Teens/International/Česky/Lidé_a_společnost/Svátky_a_trad ice/Vánoce/
World/Català/Arts_i_cultura/Tradicions/Festes_anuals/Nadal
World/Chinese_Simplified/社会/节假日/圣诞节
World/Česky/Společnost/Svátky_a_tradice/Vánoce
World/Dansk/Samfund/Højtider_og_mærkedage/Jul
World/Deutsch/Gesellschaft/Fest-_und_Feiertage/Weihnachten/
World/Español/Sociedad/Festividades/Navidad
World/Français/Société/Fêtes_et_jours_fériés/Noël
World/Italiano/Società/Festività/Natale
World/Japanese/社会/文化/祝祭日・年中行事/クリスマス
World/Nederlands/Maatschappij/Feestdagen/Kerstmis
World/Svenska/Samhälle/Helger/Jul
World/Thai/สังคม/วันหยุดประจำปี/ คริสมาสต์/

You will notice how much a global communtiy the ODP is by the way we tie
categories of a similar nature together when they are when they are in completely
different languages.

Take for instance the category at Society/Holidays/Christmas. If you look under
the "See Also" group of links (which are categories in the English language that
are related to this one) you will see immediately that we have a similar category
in 12 other languages. These languages are Catalan, Chinese Simplified, Czech,
Danish, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, Swedish and Thai.
These links are here for your convenience and all you need to do to see what we
have in the other language is click on its name and you will be taken right to it.
If you know of some sites that could be added to any of the above categories, please
feel free to suggest them, or even better why not think about joining us and become
an editor. If you feel you would like to become part of the community just fill in the
application form and we will have a look at it as soon as possible.

As you can see from the number of categories above, and the plethora of different
languages, DMOZ is a multi-cultural, worldwide community that prides itself on trying
to give representation to all creeds, languages and cultures. That job is certainly not
finished, and it may never be, but we love to give it a go.

There are many other religious and non-religious festivals all around the world that
may not be as fully represented as they could be by the directory. It would be great
to have some input for these. Would like to join us to help us with that? We're always
eager to welcome new editors to help build and maintain categories, especially in areas
of the directory that are less developed. Just find a category that has your particular
interest, and click the become an editor link near the top of the page.

All that is left to do is again wish all our users a Happy Christmas and a prosperous New
Year and to assure you that we are all looking forward to a productive editing year at
DMOZ.

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DMOZ Planned System Outage Notification, Round 3

Emily Kayser — 2010-08-16T06:00:00+00:00

Over the next three days, we will be making additional upgrades to DMOZ. As with the previous planned outage, we will be taking some parts of the directory offline so that we can complete the work. While the directory content will stay on view throughout the process, all directory submissions will be disabled from Monday, August 16 - Wednesday, August 18, 2010. The following functionality will be unavailable throughout this planned outage:

Site suggestions,
Site update requests,
New editor applications,
Editor & staff feedback, and
Public abuse reports.

Neither the Resource Zone public forums nor the DMOZ editor forums will be impacted by this outage. We will provide any additional updates about this outage to the public via this blog.

Thank you again for your patience as we work to upgrade the DMOZ directory!
Emily

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DMOZ Planned System Outage Notification, Round 2

Emily Kayser — 2010-07-19T13:49:00+00:00

Over the next three days, we will be making additional upgrades to DMOZ. As with the previous planned outage, we will be taking some parts of the directory offline so that we can complete the work. While the directory content will stay on view throughout the process, all directory submissions will be disabled from Tuesday, July 20 - Thursday, July 22, 2010. The following functionality will be unavailable throughout this planned outage:

Site suggestions,
Site update requests,
New editor applications,
Editor & staff feedback, and
Public abuse reports.

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DMOZ Planned System Outage Notification

Emily Kayser — 2010-07-02T11:34:00+00:00

Over the course of the next few days, we'll be conducting upgrades to DMOZ that will require us to take some parts of the directory offline. While the directory content will stay on view throughout the process, all directory submissions will be disabled from Sunday, July 4 - Wednesday, July 7, 2010. The following functionality will be impacted by this planned outage:

Site suggestions,
Site update requests,
New editor applications,
Editor & staff feedback, and
Public abuse reports.

Neither the Resource Zone public forums nor the DMOZ editor forums will be impacted by this outage. We will provide any additional updates about this outage to the public via this blog.

Thank you for your patience as we work to upgrade the DMOZ directory!
Emily

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Exploring DMOZ: Animal Collections

Emily Kayser — 2010-03-26T17:17:00+00:00

Hi Everyone,

For this post, editor hiraeth has prepared an overview of her experience editing in the science categories. Enjoy!

Emily

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I'm a collector. In the same way that other people may collect stamps, coins or fossils, I collect websites. As an editor with the ODP, I spend a lot of time finding sites, labelling them, listing them and rearranging them. I am constantly on the lookout for new specimens and I open my collections to the public so that they can benefit from all the good and useful sites I have found.

My favourite collection is Flora and Fauna. I could happily spend all my editing time adding to and classifying sites about the vast range of animals, plants, fungi and bugs that exist. The category has expanded considerably under my curatorship. During the last year I have been involved in a project to replace the English language subcategory names such as Snakes with their scientific equivalent, Serpentes. Because these names are less familiar to many users of the directory, there is a an A to Z index and also links in most subcategories to guide people to the correct location. The more scientifically knowledgeable may argue that classification has moved on and that the structure used in the directory is no longer up to date. I think this is a valid criticism, but as new ideas on taxonomy are constantly being put forward and revised, there is no consensus view and the category is likely to remain as it is for the foreseeable future.

There are not many submissions to this part of the directory but some sites are suggested and these are mostly useful additions that will enlarge the scope of the category. However, a member of the public may, for example, suggest a gallery of photographs of unidentified butterflies found somewhere in the tropical rainforests of South America. I will either send this to Wildlife or the appropriate Science & Environment category in Regional.

Another category in which I edit is Animal Health. Here, I have enjoyed adding a large number of sites on diseases of pets, livestock and wild animals. Sometimes I get distracted. While looking for sites on parasitic diseases I find myself adding sites on mosquitoes or ticks or bacteria to Flora and Fauna. Or fungal diseases may lead me to Flora and Fauna again or to crops or livestock in Agriculture where I also have permission to edit.

A large part of Animal Health consists of sites about veterinary medicine and alternative medicine. The latter is broken down into sites about therapies and therapists in fields ranging from animal acupuncture to chiropractic, massage therapy and aromatherapy. Although Health/Animal is a topical category, the subcategory Veterinarians is broken down regionally and includes over 2500 individual practices from all over the world. (In the USA, even when quite small, these seem to call themselves animal hospitals, but in other parts of the world, clinic or surgery is the more usual term, and animal hospital is reserved for a specialist referral centre.)

In contrast to Flora & Fauna, this part of the directory receives plenty of suggestions. Listing veterinarians in their correct location is quite straightforward. Nearly every vet with a working website should be listable under our guidelines. Sites submitted to other parts of Animal Health are often more problematic. Some are a mass of advertisements in which a small amount of not very useful information is engulfed. These do not get accepted in accordance with our site selection criteria. Others are supplied by people whose pets have suffered from various conditions and who now consider themselves experts on the subject. These sites can be listed if they contain sufficient good quality information. Other submissions are really about the keeping of pets, with a little information on health thrown in for good measure. I usually send these across to Pets for consideration by another editor. Some sites are not in English and get sent to the appropriate language category of World, and some have no connection with animal health whatsoever. These are quite a waste of time. Rather than deleting them, I have to search for a suitable category to send them to, a job that could have been better done by the submitter who knew exactly what the site was about!

Besides these categories I edit in many other categories which I would love to tell you about, but time presses, and I had better get back to my collections and add a few more exhibits!

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Exploring DMOZ: World of Warcraft

Emily Kayser — 2010-03-01T15:45:00+00:00

Hi Everyone,

Today we're starting a new series called Exploring DMOZ. These posts will give individual editors the opportunity to highlight categories where they work. We hope that this will help demonstrate the depth and breadth of editor knowledge and highlight the richness of the directory itself. Editor crowbar has prepared the first one.

Emily

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What is the topic of the category you edit in?
Games: Video Games: Roleplaying: Massive Multiplayer Online: World of Warcraft

What is it for or about?
Well, it's an amazing on-line fantasy game that 11 million people worldwide play, and interact with each other in. It's a 3-D type of game with wonderful graphics that allows a player to explore a vast role playing world. There are so many different things a player can do in the game that it never becomes boring. The ages of the players range from children to senior citizens, and at $4 a week, it's very affordable.

Can you explain what the subcategories are about? What do they cover?
The game is so complicated and vast in its content and growing, that there are thousands and thousands of websites devoted to it, from Chats and Forums to actual books that have been written as guides for the class roles and profession roles.

The subcategories sort out and gather together these topics so that the game player can go directly to the information they're interested in. Unlike a Google search, which I use in-game to find specific things that I need quickly, the subcategories in the Directory give the player a broader view of all the information that might be available, things that they may have been unaware existed. A Google search is great, but only if you know the information exists.

Yes, in-game we know there are Guilds and how to form one, but only by visiting the Directory can you find out there may be 80,000+ guild websites, and that you can have a free site for your own Guild. Only by visiting the Directory will you find a list of databases, chats and forums you didn't know existed, podcasts, art, videos, walkthroughs and guides, and other useful information. Where do you think Google gets its information? Much of it comes from DMOZ.

Why were you interested in editing it? What is your personal interest?
Somebody mentioned the game to me, and I took a look at it out of curiosity, and I've been playing it for two years now. I was already an editor and it was a year before it even occurred to me to check DMOZ for the category. Once I found it existed, I applied to edit the category, and was immediately accepted and given permission to edit there. The problem I have is finding the time to both edit the category and play the game, it's a real battle between which is more interesting.

Do you get a lot of site suggestions to it? How do you find new sites?
Yes, the category gets many site suggestions. A lot of them, like game gold, item selling, and paid guides, or paid services have to be moved to a Shopping category, others are junk sites that get deleted, and the rest have to be sorted down to the correct subcategory, before I even think of reviewing them.

What is fascinating about editing though, is that existing listings and newly suggested ones, often have links to other outstanding sites that are so good they just have to be listed. So, it's a very exciting prospect to find these gems, as it is for all editors.

What do you look for to determine whether a site meets the selection criteria for your category?
Unique content, meaning content that is original and of great value to other players like myself, or the writers personal opinion and experience in playing the game. Because of the vast content in the game, there's really no way not to have repetitious information pop up in explaining something about the game, but as a player myself, I'm a good judge of what the authors intent is, and how helpful the site would be to a player.

As an editor, my only concern is to list sites that would be of value to the information seeker, in this case, other gamers, or future gamers, so we try to be selective in which sites we use in building a category. Though there are many sites to choose from, and more being created every day, not all sites are needed.

Our main objective is to build a good category, not to list every site that exists.

What are some of the more common reasons that sites do not meet these criteria, specific to your category?
The most common thing I run into is a site that has a lot of generic information on it that can be found on most sites and a whole bunch of links to "for sale" sites selling something like guides or services. Their intent is perfectly obvious and fools no one. I might list the paid guide or services site itself, (in another area of the Directory) but not the sites that point to it. Those I would delete.

There is a place for "paid for guides and services", but not in this particular category. All of the guides here are free, so "paid guides" would be listed in another category. If a site is turned down for this category, it doesn't get deleted, it gets sent to another category, in Shopping, which I also edit.

Aside from reviewing suggestions, how do you contribute to the DMOZ directory and/or community (for example, sub-category creation/maintenance, category re-orgs, maintenance of existing listings, mentor relationships with other editors, tool building, etc.)?
Besides this particular category and several other specialized topics, I also have editing permissions for all of the United States, which means I can edit hundreds of thousands of categories within the U.S. I have spent a lot of time in moving misplaced site suggestions, resolving broken urls of existing listings, doing structural work such as creating new categories and subcategories, @links, and looking at update requests from the public.

I've mentored several new editors, some of which have gone on to become meta editors, I've led Team New York in our efforts to keep up with the thousands and thousands of new site suggestions we receive weekly, as well as investigating the thousands of existing listings that have url problems.

I've created several new initiatives that I thought were good ideas to help solve specific problems, and brought them up for discussion in our forums, and I've joined in on many other discussions over the years led by other editors and contributed my own thoughts about them.

I've also spent a lot of time on outside forums trying to answer questions from the public, and clearing up misconceptions about the Directory and editing.

I don't like to keep saying "I", because it's about "we" collectively, working as a team. We are all equals, from an editor with one small category, to our Metas/Administrators, we work shoulder to shoulder, together.

As you can see, an editor's role in the Directory is multifaceted, we do much more than sit around adding sites. There are many tasks, and they all need to be done, so our time is divided according to what interests us at the moment.

But we all started with a passion, a special interest that we wanted to share with the world by building a category for others with a similar interest. If you have a passion, please join us as editors and see why we get so excited about the categories we edit in. Experience the pleasure we get in finding a gem to list, and the satisfaction of building something helpful to others.

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DMOZ: A Decade in Review

Emily Kayser — 2010-01-29T17:31:00+00:00

Hi Everyone,

This week, we have a very special guest blogger! Bob Keating, our editor-in-chief, has prepared some personal thoughts and insights on the directory's next decade. Enjoy!

Emily

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The other night I was watching an old episode of the TV show "Six Feet Under," in which the character Ruth is coaxed by a friend to attend a self-help seminar called, "The Plan." The Plan uses the house as a metaphor for examining and re-building one's life. When Ruth tells her family about "The Plan," she learns it is not as new to her as it is to others. Her children believe it to be a cult, but show little concern of their mother's interests. Ruth's free-spirited sister said she went through The Plan in the 1970s when it was called something else, and then commented how Ruth's kitchen is exactly the same as it was back then. Ruth realized just how much rebuilding she had to do. She was terminally unhip and out of touch with the world around her.

As I was watching others respond to Ruth's involvement with The Plan, I began to think about DMOZ. Over a decade ago, DMOZ was a new and intriguing idea of getting the web to organize itself by having web users build it, manage it, and develop it. DMOZ had its fair share of detractors, particularly from those who argued that its model would never result in a quality, commercially viable service. Then there were those who understood the possibilities of an emerging social media, and went on to build powerful consumer brands based on the idea of self-organizing communities.

The '00s: Growth, Loss and Rebirth

Reflecting over the past decade it is too easy to come up with a list of DMOZ's successes. In the last ten years, DMOZ has gone from scrappy start-up to search industry stalwart. DMOZ data is consumed by thousands of search engines and websites in over 80 languages, from Google to smaller, special interest websites.

DMOZ has scaled to become, and sustained itself as the largest human-edited directory of the web. Over 84,000 editors (and growing) have contributed over the years, listing of more than 4.5 million websites total. DMOZ has been a major influence in the rise of social media, inspiring the creation of projects like Wikipedia. Its model for collaboration has been refined and improved upon to form the basis of a number of other editor-contributor projects.

At the beginning of the last decade, DMOZ was managed by a small staff that had the goal of turning DMOZ into a self-regulating community of editors. DMOZ has pushed the limits of community self-regulation. Today, DMOZ operates primarily as a self-governing meritocracy in which day-to-day activities - from editor account requests to submission suggestions and editorial quality - are wholly managed by the community with limited staff oversight.

A review of the past decade would not be complete without mentioning the day DMOZ went dark in late 2006 after a catastrophic operations failure. The herculean efforts and steadfast dedication of its technical editors and community leaders brought DMOZ back to life.

Over the '00 decade, DMOZ has grown to be one of the most successful collaborative projects on the web. It has outlasted its commercial counterparts, and continues to be relevant in the search industry. The keys to its longevity and usefulness are its dedicated community, its open, collaborative editorial model, its non-commercial nature, and open data distribution channel.

The '10s: Looking Ahead

As easy as it is to come up with a list of DMOZ's successes, it's equally easy to come up with a list of things it can improve upon. This list is well documented in the annals of editor forums and search engine industry blogs.

Much like Ruth's kitchen and her life in general, DMOZ still looks and operates much the same way it did a decade ago ... avocado green appliances and all. While DMOZ receives hundreds of editor applications, and lists thousands of websites each week, it needs a new Plan - a new blueprint for the future of how the web is organized, and how human organized data is consumed.

Using traditional web directories as a means for information discovery is a thing of the past. However, the need for organized web-based content continues to grow exponentially. The future of DMOZ does not lie merely in improving its toolset, making it more SEO friendly, or convincing others of its collective brilliance. Its future lies in turning the entire thing on its head.

In 2020, here's what I hope will be listed as the early successes of DMOZ during the '10s - and since DMOZ has been a bit like the Hotel California to me, I might even be writing it:

Developed an API to DMOZ data that allowed editors and developers across the web to write new applications using DMOZ data
Transformed from a fixed-path directory, to the largest faceted system for organizing information on the web
Become a major influencer in bringing the semantic web out of the lab and the enterprise, and into the entire web, popularizing Web 3.0 applications
Transformed DMOZ from a single service operated by a relatively closed and exclusive community to a suite of products with multiple levels of participation and engagement, particularly around communities of interests, both commercial and non-commercial.

And hopefully that's just 2010. What's said in the years ahead depends on how the web community shapes DMOZ and develops new ways of using its data and services. I'm excited by the future of DMOZ as much as I was in January 2000.

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DMOZ 2009 Year in Review

Emily Kayser — 2010-01-27T19:30:00+00:00

Happy New Year!

Now that 2009 is officially in the books, it's time to take a look back at the year that was. We've already heard about our editors' many projects and accomplishments this past year, so I thought we'd take the opportunity to look at some of our directory statistics and some trends we've seen throughout the year.

As we've highlighted in the past, the DMOZ user base is incredibly international. In 2009 we had visitors from over 236 countries and territories around the globe. While five countries (US, UK, Germany, Italy and Canada) still account for the bulk of the visitors, we've also had visitors from emerging markets including India, Russia and China as well as from smaller areas such as Micronesia, Chad, Andorra, Benin, Christmas and Easter Islands - even Vatican City.

According to ComScore, an independent company that measures internet usage, nearly 60% of these visitors were between the ages of 18 and 49; of these, 52% are male and 47% are female. The top two sources of traffic are Google and Wikipedia.

In terms of the directory itself, we added more than 2500 new editors and more than 7000 editors contributed to the project this year. Editors made nearly 2 million editing actions, including more than 700000 URLs added or updated, and created more than 26000 new categories.

Kudos to all who have made 2009 a success! We're looking forward to an excellent 2010.

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2009 Year in Review: Editor & Community Achievements

Emily Kayser — 2009-12-08T11:48:00+00:00

Directory & Community Development

Greenbust Effort & the Purple Push
makrhod headed up two projects to process long-standing edits. During the first, she encouraged editors to process greenbusts that had accumulated over time. The result was that greenbust edits were completely cleared for all directory branches except for World, and even there the number was considerably diminished.

In the Purple Push, makrhod again organized editors to process all update requests. This effort was completely successful. Thanks to the efforts of many editors, the directory was declared completely update-free (for a little while, anyway).

Both of these were incredible achievements and representative of the amazing collaborative efforts of our editors. Thanks to everyone who helped with these initiatives!

"Foodbusters" Initiative
The Shopping/Food editors held a week-long "Foodbusters" challenge to process the unreviewed sites in this area of the directory. This resulted in 211 new listings in this area.

Typo Fixes
Between March and July, bluestar fixed over 38,000 typos in titles, descriptions, category descriptions and submission notices across Business, Computers, Games, Health, Home, News, Recreation, Reference, Science, Society, Sports and parts of Regional.

Geocities Updates
Geocities closed down in November rendering thousands of listings obsolete. Beginning on the day of Yahoo's announcement in April and continuing throughout the months leading up to the closure, editors worked tirelessly to find replacement sites (where possible) and remove any outdated listings.

Addition of Current Events Categories
This year, editors dedicated a great deal of time to updating existing categories and developing new categories to cover timely events. Examples include:

The work of numerous editors made these categories possible. Thanks to everyone who contributed to the effort!

Editor School
A new class entered Editor School this year. This mentorship program pairs newer editors with more experienced mentors to help mentees gain additional knowledge and experience in editing.

Official DMOZ Blog
Keeping this blog running throughout the year is a collaborative effort between the editor community and AOL Staff. Editors help with all aspects of the blog including editorial calendar development, writing and editing posts and responding to common questions and concerns from our readers. artisands, hiraeth, glippitt, lisagirl, mollybdenum, imrankhan, crowbar, jensarentoft, laigh, and stevek have each contributed at least one post in 2009; and chaos127, johndouglas, laigh, mollybdenum and photofox have kept everything running smoothly.

International Growth & Development

Expansion in World/Thai
Thai editors, under the leadership of vorapon, have done a phenomenal job of building out the Thai language categories. In 2009, the number of listings has doubled from 2000 to 4000.

Creation of World/Sinhala
This year, editors under the leadership of sirisusara created a new category for sites in the Sri Lankan Sinhala language.

World/Punjabi_Gurmukhi Script Changes
Editor hswaseer has been busy converting the titles and descriptions from transliterated Punjabi into Gurmukhi script.

Expansion of United Kingdom Regional Categories
Editors in the UK regional categories made tremendous progress this year. The England category topped the 125,000 listing mark; Scotland increased by 30%; and the Isle of Wight increased from 600 sites and 30 locations to 1800 sites and 60 locations.

Expansion of World/Russian
The World/Russian branch increased by approximately 9000 sites. Editors in this area performed over 80 topical reorganizations and created a Russian sub-forum in Resource Zone (link). An additional 250 editors joined this branch; additionally, two Russian editors were granted meta privileges and an additional two were granted top-level privileges in World/Russian. In 2009, there were 25 posts and 3200 comments on the unofficial Russian DMOZ Blog (in Russian).

Personal Milestones & Achievements

New Editor Achievements
wszp joined the project this summer and has to date made 708 edits including 273 unique adds.

Use of DMOZ RDF Data to Improve Directory Search
Over the summer, tanstaaf1 created a site to improve DMOZ usage and promotion of the World/Russian and World/Ukrainian branches through improved search functionality. The site is built on the RDF data and provides better results than the built-in ODP search because of an improved ability to handle Russian and Ukrainian morphology (inflections, word forms). For each category displayed in the search results, the user may view listings and (based on permissions) edit that category or suggest & update site listings.

You can give this a try in English & in Russian with these sample categories:

Moscow, in English (the capital of Russia)
Kyiv, in English (the capital of Ukraine)
Петербург, in Russian (that's Saint Petersburg, the second largest city of Russia)
Київ, in Ukrainian (that's Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine)
Харьков, in Russian (that's Kharkiv, the second largest city of Ukraine)

In Memoriam
Sadly, we lost two of our long-time editors in recent months. Both ianillo and brmehlman made countless contributions to the directory and to the DMOZ community overall during their many years of volunteer service. They will be greatly missed.

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What is in the news?

Emily Kayser — 2009-11-20T20:19:00+00:00

Hey everyone,

As we've highlighted in the past, directory searches can be very helpful if you're looking for a broad overview of a general topic. Have you ever thought about how you might be able to use this to learn more about current events? Editor glippitt has put together an article that highlights some of the excellent current events categories available in DMOZ.

Emily

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According to the front page of the US version of Google News recently, the top stories were Obama's trip to China (what's their government been saying and doing lately?), Sarah Palin's new book (what did she say about the notorious Katie Couric interviews?), and unilateral Palestinian steps (whatever happened to the Roadmap?). Want some background information to help inform your views on these topics? Check out the relevant DMOZ categories:
Barack Obama
China
Sarah Palin
Palestinian Territory
Israel-Palestine Conflict

Under World News there was also the UN food summit (what else is the UN doing these days?) and climate change (isn't something happening in Copenhagen soon?):
United Nations
Climate change

U.S. news included the New Jersey car license plate issue (is the state government that desperate for money?) and trying the terrorist suspects in NYC (how does the civilian court system work, and how does it differ from the military court option?):
New Jersey government
War on Terrorism
Judicial Branch
U.S. Military Law

Medical companies (how are they reacting to healthcare reform?), the Japanese economy (is it recovering?), and Asian stocks (how have their stock markets been doing?) were in the Business news:
Healthcare Business
Japan Business and Economy
Asia Business and Economy

Sci/Tech included NASA and the Mars Rover (what else is going on in the space program?), Super Mario Bros. Wii (how many Mario Bros. games are there, anyway?), and digital books (which is the best e-book reader for my mother?):
NASA
Mario Games
Digital Books

Entertainment news was about the Oscars (didn't they change the format this year?) and The Twilight Saga: New Moon film (what's the history of vampires in art?):
Academy Awards
Vampires

Sports news centered on football (where can I find some official gear or memorabilia to give someone?) and Nascar (where are the fan sites, chats and forums?):
Football
NASCAR
2010 Winter Olympics

Health news focused on healthcare legislation (what's that public option all about?), the swine flu (who's most at risk?), and the effectiveness of popular cholesterol drugs (what about the drugs I'm taking?):
U.S. Healthcare Reform
A-H1N1 (Swine flu)
Drugs and Medications

Our editors are from countries all over the world, with varied backgrounds and interests. What we all have in common is a desire to volunteer some of our time to research topics for the benefit of our users. Good as search engines are these days, the efforts of human editors to find, review, categorize, annotate - and cull! - websites on a topic can often save you time and effort. Maybe we'll help you find sites which aren't 'popular' enough to rank high in the search engine results, but are especially informative. Maybe we'll build a sub-category which you hadn't even thought about. Maybe you'll follow one of our links to a related category. However you use what we've created, remember we did this for you. Not for website owners or website designers or SEO specialists, but for people using the web to improve their knowledge and understanding, and to find what they're looking for.

In this season of thanksgiving, whether you celebrate it as a national holiday or through your general thoughts, please take a moment to reflect and give thanks for all the volunteers in the world donating their time and efforts to help others. DMOZ is just one of these efforts, but it's one we as Dmoz editors care about very much. Happy Thanksgiving!

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What do all those editor titles mean?

Emily Kayser — 2009-10-26T17:52:00+00:00

If you've spent much time here on the blog or over in the public forums at Resource Zone, you've probably seen us mention many different editor titles - meta, admin, staff and editall, for example - but do you know what role each type of editor plays within the directory?

There are two basic types of designations for editor titles. One refers to the breadth of editing permissions, and the other refers to a role in directory management. Each is detailed below.

Breadth of Editing
This group is instrumental in shaping the contents, look and feel of the directory. Editors with this type of permissions make decisions about where things should be placed within the directory. They create new categories, break them apart when they get too big, and move them around as needed. And, of course, they add, update and remove listings from their categories, as needed.

Editor
"Editor" is a generic term that refers to anyone who volunteers to work on the DMOZ directory. All of our volunteers have permissions to work in one or more categories as well as all sub-categories under the ones for which they are the named editor.

New editors start with one small category (generally 100 sites or fewer, including all sub-categories). As an editor gains experience, he or she may request permissions to edit in additional categories. These new permissions may be granted by senior-level editors upon review of that editor's current categories.

No matter how many more advanced permissions any volunteer has been granted, he or she always maintains the designation of editor and adheres to the same set of general directory guidelines.

Greenbuster
Greenbuster is a special kind of permission granted to editors who wish to expand their editing skills by working in larger areas of the directory than those in which they have full permissions to edit. The name refers to the color of new site suggestions that an editor sees when he or she logs into the editor dashboard. Greenbusters work in this unreviewed pool of suggested sites and help named editors (or other editors in the branch if there is no named editor) to review the suggestions, edit their titles and descriptions (if necessary) and propose inclusion in the category. Greenbusted edits require a final review by an editor with full permissions in that category before they go live to the public.

This has two benefits to the directory: it helps junior-level editors get additional experience in a safe and secure environment, and it helps build out the directory in areas (or languages) where there is either a shortage of editors or an overwhelming number of site suggestions.

Cateditall
Cateditall is the title given to an editor who has permissions to edit and move categories anywhere within a given top-level category (for example, Top/Recreation or World// for non-English categories). The job of the cateditall is to take a leadership role at the category level to help guide the strategy and provide "big picture" thinking for that level.

Editall
Editall is very similar to cateditall, except that the permissions are applied to the directory as a whole as opposed to one category or branch.

At some point, you may have seen reference to editall/catmv. Catmv permissions allow the editor to move whole categories (as opposed to just individual sites) from one part of the directory to another in order to execute on the overall ontology strategy. In many cases, an editor who has editall permissions will also have catmv permissions, but no editor can have catmv permissions without the designation of editall.

Directory Management
Editors with these types of permissions carry out general management tasks such as processing new applications, granting (and, when necessary, retracting) new categories & permissions, handling abuse reports and project management. They also exhibit strong leadership skills and take a very active role in the directory and forums.

Catmod
Catmods are managers for specific top-level categories (for example, Top/Arts). They are experts in these areas and they act as primary points of contact for editors who work in their areas. Their catmod permissions include the ability to act in parallel to cateditalls, but they also maintain primary responsibility for directory development in their categories. This includes actions such as driving category strategy, moderating forums and helping to build solid editor ranks through mentorship programs and other methods.

Meta
The primary job of meta editors is community development. They emphasize team work, consensus building & editor accountability, and they play a leading role in efforts to root out editor abuses.

Similar to catmods, metas also maintain all of the permissions held by editall/catmvs.

Admin
At the admin level, editors participate in community governance. They take an active role in communications, both within the editor community where they act as forum moderators and provide community-wide updates via dashboard notes, and with the public through their role as curators of the directory documentation. It is also the responsibility of admins to assign permissions of (cat)editall and meta to editors who have demonstrated excellence in editing and community development.

While many editors at all levels may maintain permissions to edit in both the Classic DMOZ and Kids & Teens directories, only admins are guaranteed to have permissions in both. At other levels, editors are granted permissions in a parallel structure for the Kids & Teens directory, as designated by the "k" prefix in their titles (for example, "kmeta").

There is one additional designation that falls outside these two main groups.

Staff
This refers to employees of AOL, DMOZ's parent company, who work on the DMOZ project. Staff's primary responsibilities include building and maintaining the directory's technical infrastructure and public relations/marketing for the project.

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Another Year: Two Years in ODP

Emily Kayser — 2009-10-09T17:00:00+00:00

We first met editor laigh nearly two years ago when he blogged about his first month as a DMOZ editor. A year later, we checked in to see how he was doing. Believe it or not, another year has gone by, and laigh is back to give us an update on his second year as an editor - it's been eventful!

- - - - - - - - - - -
Yes it is that time of year again, the time for me, laigh, to pop in and say hello and let you know how I am getting on and what I have been up to.

I have now been an editor for just over two years and have completed just over 75000 edits in that time but the number of edits is just a part of the story.

Late last year I decided to take a rest. I had been spending quite a lot of my spare time editing, and although enjoying it, I decided to have a break for a while. I took some time off and returned with increased vigour about two months later. To my surprise, within a month or so of my return, I was given further permission in the directory. I was entrusted with the position of editall and catmv. This allowed me to work in most parts of the directory and to be able to change category names. Within a few weeks of that "promotion" I was then given permissions to work in all of the Kids and Teens. I now can edit anywhere in the directory.

Obviously the senior editors (admins and metas) consider very carefully if an editor can handle permissions such as editall, and I am very happy that they thought I could. The first time I opened up my editor interface I was amazed at the amount of scope ODP actually has. I had worked in large parts of the directory before these permissions but the utter size of the directory actually dawned on me that morning. What I was taught that day was not how much I knew about ODP but how much I didn't know. Being an editall doesn't automatically qualify you to edit anywhere, all it does is open up a huge learning curve so that you can start to educate yourself to edit in places that you have not been before.

What do I concentrate my time on now that I can "go anywhere". Basically I spend a lot of my time in QC (Quality Control) work. I go around the directory looking for sites that may have gone bad, changed, or even disappeared all together. I see this as a very important part of maintaining the projects standards and keeping the user experience to the highest possible degree. I have also being doing a bit of work within the Kids and Teens area. I have been working on expanding the category that deals with The Boy Scouts of America at http://www.dmoz.org/Kids_and_Teens/People_and_Society/Organizations/Pe rsonal_Development/Scouting/Boy_Scouts_of_America/. I have added quite a few sites to these categories and tidied up quite a few too. Still a long way to go but anything good is worth taking your time over.

I do tend to do a few other jobs around the project, but don't worry I will not bore you with them, suffice to say it all keeps me busy.

Anyway, time to go now. I hope I will be able to talk to you again next year. I would like to say thanks to all my fellow editors for all their help, support and friendship over the last year and I would like to thank all members of the public and webmasters for continuing to support us by suggesting relevant quality sites and using the directory for their own projects.

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Go Back to School with DMOZ!

Emily Kayser — 2009-10-02T15:01:00+00:00

For many students, school is now back in full-swing and assignments are starting to pile up. If you (or someone you know) recently returned to school, DMOZ can be a great resource to use as a starting point for projects or research papers for students of all ages.

Elementary School through High School
As we've mentioned in the past, the Kids & Teens directory contains a wealth of hand-selected information for children ranging in age from pre-school to high school. School age children can use the directory to find homework help, access virtual exhibits at leading museums, and find learning enrichment activities in areas such as science and reading.
Older students can find homework help and reference tools in the Kids & Teens directory as well, but there is also additional content specific to career choices, higher education opportunities and organizations & activities to help teens explore career paths and options for additional education.
Want to give it a try? Check out some of these categories:

o. Homework Help
Pages and sites created specifically to assist children and teenagers with homework free of charge.
http://www.dmoz.org/Kids_and_Teens/School_Time/Homework_Help/

o. Reference Tools
Free online reference tools including dictionaries, thesauri, encyclopedias and almanacs.
http://www.dmoz.org/Kids_and_Teens/School_Time/Reference_Tools/

o. Future Planning & Careers
Pages and sites about careers and the skills and academic knowledge needed for them.
http://www.dmoz.org/Kids_and_Teens/People_and_Society/Careers/

You can also find resources for specific academic subject areas and content in a variety of languages.

College & Beyond
For university students, the directory can prove to be an invaluable resource as a starting point for research. I know this first-hand as my own introduction to DMOZ was conducting research for an undergraduate term paper.

As we've pointed out in the past, DMOZ is an excellent place to locate general information on topics ranging from world affairs to social sciences to scientific research journals. It's also an excellent place to find trade groups and information on local businesses that may be able to assist by providing interviews or site visits.

To use an example from my own experience, I was conducting research on architectural trends in Chicago. I began with an overview of urban and regional planning and then moved on to find sites that focused on an overview of periods and styles of architecture & historic buildings in Chicago before delving into trade associations to help me find architects (and examples of their work) in the Chicago area. I also checked out the category on architectural photography to find out if there were any local photographers who might have images that would be helpful to my research.

After that, I had enough information to help me begin a more focused search using additional resources.

Many of our editors are experts in their fields and have compiled categories that reflect their passion for and knowledge of these topics. If you find that your area of academic interest isn't well-represented in the directory why not join us as an editor & help build it out?

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How is DMOZ Data Used?

Emily Kayser — 2009-09-03T14:43:00+00:00

A lot of our blog posts are dedicated to exploring the internal workings of the directory or the way in which DMOZ grows, but we don't often talk about how the data is used once it's included in the directory. While the stand-alone DMOZ directory is an excellent resource, many of the information-seekers who benefit from directory content come into contact with it through third-party sites that use the data.

You may have heard DMOZ called by another name - the Open Directory Project, or ODP. This is where the "Open" comes in. The DMOZ license agreement states that users may download the RDF - in other words, the entire contents of the directory - and use some or all of it on their sites free of charge. Many sites both large and small incorporate data compiled by our dedicated corps of volunteer editors. The best-known example of this may be the Google Directory which applies Google's propriety PageRank data to DMOZ results. In other cases, site owners use a small portion of the data relevant to their own regions, localities or lines of business.

In exchange for use of the data, site owners agree to include an attribution badge to ensure that the editors get credit for the work they do to build and maintain the directory. The badge is also important in that it allows interested users to learn more about the project and, potentially, to decide to join us as editors to help it grow. There are some fairly common questions about how and when the badge must be displayed. Examples include:

1. I am only using a very small portion of the data - just one category, or even just a few links. Do I have to display the badge?
Yes. You may use all or part of the directory data on your site, but any quantity of ODP data (large or small) you select must be acknowledged with the badge.

2. I am including my own data in addition to DMOZ data. Do I have to display the badge?
Yes. The license's badging requirement also applies to any derivative works created by end users.

3. I run my own directory and accept my own site submissions in addition to the DMOZ-listed sites. Do I have to display the badge?
Yes. The rules here are the same as with any other derivative work.

4. Are there any circumstances in which I can use data and not display the badge?
The short answer is no. Any use of DMOZ data must be acknowledged in accordance with the license.

Sites that do not display the badge are in violation of the license agreement. Site owners may be contacted by DMOZ and asked to make the appropriate updates in order to comply.

You can read more about the DMOZ license requirements here and download a code snippet to add the badge to your site here.

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What is Editor Abuse?

Emily Kayser — 2009-08-24T11:23:00+00:00

Hi everyone!

At DMOZ, we get tons of questions about what editor abuse actually is and how to spot it. In this post, meta editor jensarentoft has provided a very useful primer on the signs and symptoms of abuse, and what to do if you suspect it.

Emily

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The ODP Editor Guidelines explain the different types of abuse. Examples of abuse that are not tolerated - and may result in account removal - include, but are not limited to:

Editorial abuse
Manipulating or deleting submissions and listings of competitors.
Adding inappropriate sites or adding sites in inappropriate categories.
Repeated and egregiously poor editing, despite feedback and/or a dashboard warning.

Self-promotion
Cooling your own site or affiliated sites.
Title or description manipulation.
Adding/promoting only one's own sites or affiliated sites.
Creating vanity categories to showcase one's own sites or affiliated sites.

Other violations
Accepting or soliciting bribes in exchange for listing.
Uncivil and intentionally disruptive behavior.
Violating the confidentiality of the forums, editor notes etc.
Concealing affiliations.
Spamming the directory.
One ODP editor having more than one account or sharing the account with others.

Is it abusive for editors to list their own sites?
Editors are allowed to list their own site(s) or affiliated sites provided that their sites meet all listing criteria and that they also list other sites. There is no official number for how many other sites the editor must list to stay clear of self-promotion. Editall+ editors are allowed to list their own sites in appropriate categories all over the directory, and that is no problem because they usually have listed thousands of other sites.

Editors are only allowed to list their site(s) in the category in which they have active editor permissions, and only if the site is appropriate for the category. Asking other editors to list a site in a category is considered self-promotion and is not allowed. Instead, editors must suggest their sites to other categories just like non-editors.

When are editing privileges removed?
Editors can learn about how to prevent abuse by using guidelines, reading editor forums, and receiving feedback from senior editors. In serious matters, they may receive dashboard warnings. Metas, Catmods and Admins make every effort to keep editors on track and make them feel good about being part of this international online community.

Some cases of abuse are very clear. Any editor who accepts bribes or deletes competitors´ sites will find that his or her time as an editor is running out.

In many cases, however, a warning is issued to an editor before removal. This helps to ensure that an editing transgression is truly due to abuse and is not simply the result of gaps in an individual editor's understanding of the category or listing guidelines. It is important to note that there is a difference between poor editing or honest editorial mistakes and editor abuse, and it isn't always apparent which has occurred to people looking from the outside; however, some practices that are visible to the public are good indicators of abuse and we'd like to know about those. A list of these can be found in the "Report Abuse" section below.

Removing editing privileges must be supported by at least five Meta editors and is used only if nothing else works.

How is abuse found?
Abuse is found in various ways and not only from abuse reports submitted by the public or by editors. One of the tasks of the Meta editors is fighting abuse, and senior editors have a number of abuse-fighting resources at their disposal.

An easy way to spot abuse is to look for titles and descriptions that are not in accordance with the guidelines. You also can look for inappropriate sites listed against the guidelines about which sites not to include. If you want to look for mirrors, affiliates, and similar sites, you can find tips in this newsletter.

Report abuse
If you spot any signs or symptoms of abuse, please use this link to the Open Directory Public Abuse Report System to report it. All reports will be investigated and are visible to all Metas, Admins and Staff. Abuse reports against Metas are investigated by Admins and Staff.

Some signs of abuse which are visible to non-editors include:

Editors giving preferential treatment to their sites. This includes self-cooling (awarding of the 'cool' designation to affiliated sites) and keyword-stuffing (proving longer and/ or more favourable titles and descriptions to affiliated sites).
Editors adding inappropriate sites. This can be done accidentally, of course, but of special concern is the adding of pornographic sites outside of Adult/, affiliate links, mirrors, and doorways.
Sites listed in the Kids & Teens branch which present Adult content material.
Biased/slanted categories. The ODP aims to represent all viewpoints and topics equally and fairly; categories designed to unfairly exclude/marginalise a particular outlook/interpretation are disallowed.
Editors accepting bribes. We have no tolerance whatsoever for any bribery attempts. All submissions to the ODP are completely free; any editor found to be accepting bribes will be removed.

Directory users sometimes see sites listed in categories where they are no longer relevant or where the description they have been provided with is no longer accurate) and suspect editor abuse. In most cases, this is simply the result of an expired/hijacked domain, or a site whose owners have changed its focus since it was originally listed. In these cases, it's better to file a request to update the listing and to post in the Resource Zone Quality Control thread so that an editor can take a look at it.

To help us investigate your report please include as much relevant information as you can. This may include:

Affected categories/ editors/ sites.
A description of the alleged abuse.
Proof of editors' affiliations with specific sites.
Copies of e-mails (including full-headers where possible).
Details of any past correspondence you have had with the ODP.
Your e-mail address. This is vital if you want feedback on your report.

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What is Unique Content?

Emily Kayser — 2009-07-29T17:24:00+00:00

For site suggestors, one of the most important (and sometimes confusing) parts about submitting is determining whether a site's content is unique by ODP standards. For this post, editor crowbar has prepared some tips and examples to help clarify.

Emily

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You'll often hear us referring to the "unique content" of a site as being one of our main focuses in considering whether a site should be added to the Directory or not. Unique content is both simple and complicated to explain because what we are talking about and looking for pertains to the category itself, and with over 590,000 categories in the Directory, it means we could have 590,000 versions, each of them different.

As it states in the Guidelines we follow:
"Consider the relative value of a resource in comparison to other information resources available on your particular topic. Relative value refers not only to the quality of the site, but also to its ability to contribute important, unique information on a topic.

In general, ODP editors should enter sites that represent the following:

Original, unique and valuable informational content that contributes something unique to the category's subject.
Contrasting points of view on major issues. The ODP attempts to cover the full breadth and depth of human knowledge, representing all topics and points of view on those topics. "

(Source: http://www.dmoz.org/guidelines/include.html#include)

What this means is that our primary goal as editors is to build useful categories for people who are looking for information about either a Topic or a Geographical Area of the world, and we serve only these people, no one else. In our attempts to do this, we need to look at two things:

The content on a site that we're reviewing for possible inclusion.
The content that already exists in that particular category.

From our Guidelines:
"Is the site's content/information identical to other sites? - A site should not mirror content available on other sites."

We see this often on cookie cutter, pre-made site designs. If the information is the same on each site, why would the information seeker want to waste their valuable time looking at it again (even if it's by a different owner), so we look for any unique content that might be on it. If we find it, we'll list the site; if not, we'll delete the site suggestion. Perhaps the site owner owns two or three sites with the same information on them; in this case, we will only list one of them, provided it meets the listing criteria. Editors do not consider how well a site is designed, its page rank, how much traffic it gets, how large or small it is, or the desires or needs of the site owner. Those things have nothing to do with building good categories of information for people looking for specific things, and that's all we're interested in.

Sometimes local business owners are confused about what defines "unique content" for their sites - being the only business of their kind in their town vs. the actual content on the site.

If you are confused about the term "unique content" because your type of business is the only one in town and you can't compare your content to another business's content in that category, it might be helpful to think of your content in the terms of "original content" instead; in other words, does your site have information created by yourself that no other site has?

In a Regional listing it is very easy to provide unique content just by answering the questions: Who are you and what do you do?

A non-generic personal description of your business does two things: first, it provides the unique, original content we're looking for, and second, it gives us the information to write a better description of your business for your listing. Who knows your business better than you do?

Our job is to boil that description down to two or three sentences that will tell the information seeker what you are, and what can be found on your site. The purpose of that is not to entice someone, but to give them the facts so they can decide for themselves if you have the information they're looking for. A preview of the site. Not opinion, but of facts, which is why we are only interested in the content on your site.

If there is exactly one real estate agent in a locality, but the agent's site has nothing more than contact information and MLS search (and other template content), we would still not list it.

The number of businesses of a particular type (whether 1 or 100) in a given category has no effect whatsoever on the listability of an individual website. In order to list the website, the content of the website must be unique, and must be more significant than what one would find on a business card or in a telephone directory.

An example of non-uniques would be a hotel booking site with information about a particular hotel, in comparison to the site of the hotel itself, we would always choose the site of the hotel itself.

Also, we often re-evaluate listed sites, and those considered listable in the past may not remain so a move or even a delete is an eventuality.

Can you give me some advice about what kind of unique content I should put on my site?
Surprisingly, yes I can. Even though I don't know your particular site, and editors can't be expected to help you build your site, I will give you some personal opinion.

Always keep your eyes strictly on providing as much valuable information and help as you can to any possible visitor, because that's who we try to serve in building categories. If you have a website, then you know what those things are, and we will spot it as unique content (if it's there). Shift your thinking from gaining something from your site to giving something to the information seeker.
If you have something different or valuable to offer, point it out on your main page where we can spot it easier.
Personal opinion or experience in a topic would be considered unique content.
It is better to write the content yourself, or have it exclusively written for you.
Don't copy content from other sites (including so-called "free content").

None of these things guarantee a listing, but I believe they would be very helpful. Just remember that editors are building categories for information seekers, and in doing so, they really don't need all the sites that exist, only the ones that make the category itself more useful for the information seeker.

No one should ever build a site for the purpose of getting it listed in the Directory (just like one shouldn't build a site just for Google); instead, they should build the site for their visitors. If that site happens to become more listable because of what we've mentioned here, then we've accomplished what this blog post intended.

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Regional Editing - SmallCity, USA

Emily Kayser — 2009-07-10T14:31:00+00:00

DMOZ provides a wealth of local and regional resources to users in towns large and small across the US and around the world. In this post, editor crowbar talks about the experience of building out these local categories.

Emily

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One of the more rewarding tasks of editing in the Regional section of the Directory is to find a small locality (city) with only a few listings, and to put it on the Internet map by hunting down every possible site that exists for it and listing those that meet our selection criteria http://www.dmoz.org/guidelines/include.html> and fits the locality. Depending on the size of the city, it can either be quite rewarding, or quite challenging, but in either case, very important to the people who live there.

My personal view is that every small town deserves to be represented on the web, and this is my attempt to make the Directory and its editors a little more transparent about what it is we do.

As a country level editor, it's like looking at a road map of the whole United States, and each editing session is like throwing a dart at the map, wherever it lands is where I'll be working.

A small city of 15,000 - 20,000 population with only 4 or 5 sites listed would be ideal. My very first category was like that. So where do I start? There are no public suggestions waiting in this one. The first thing I want to look for is the local Chamber of Commerce which usually has a good list of business, charity, and government sites and can be a real goldmine for an editor.

Then on each one of those sites, I always look for links to other local sites, I'm building quite a large spider web of sites, and it becomes like a scavenger hunt, with one site leading to more sites. The Directory has a standard list of topical sub categories that can be used for each city, such as this one for Tampa, Florida:
http://www.dmoz.org/Regional/North_America/United_States/Florida/Local ities/T/Tampa/ . These include everything from education resources to transportation companies to local news sites.

An editor will normally only create these subcategories when he/she has 3 to 5 sites to put in each of them. What the editor is doing is building a category of entities that are located in this city. Most sites in Regional will be placed at this city (locality) level, not at the County, Region, or State levels.

Next, I'm going to look for educational sites, churches, website builders, real estate sites, and look for more links on them. If I get real desperate, I'll Google some of the zip codes I find on the sites or the first six digits of telephone numbers, both will pop up sites that exist in that area.

Now, I'll take a look at the sites at the County, Region, and State levels. They will sometimes lead me to other sites located in this locality, and I can also search the rest of the Directory. Many times there will be sites listed in a Topical category that can also be listed in the locality.

If an editor lives in the area, checking the local yellow pages of the phone book can yield a lot of sites, or the ads in local newspapers. It becomes so engrossing that a couple of hours can fly by before you know it, but the real reward is seeing a couple hundred new sites listed in all the proper subcategories. You have built something for that city and given them an equal presence on the Internet where they can compete, and they will never know it was you who did it.

The editor will never get a thank you for it, and none is expected, we do it for our own satisfaction. I suppose it's like putting a puzzle together, nobody really cares, but it was fun to do. This is just one activity, in one part of the Directory. Each area of the Directory is a little different to edit in and has its own specific guidelines, and there are many different tasks that an editor can choose to do in each editing session.

I think it's this freedom of choice and the trust that's placed in us as well as the satisfaction of building something worthwhile that keeps us at it. I hope I've given you some insight into what it is we really do inside the Directory.

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Why are sites sometimes removed from the directory?

Emily Kayser — 2009-06-26T12:00:00+00:00

We occasionally get questions from site owners and directory users who have noticed that previously-listed sites are no longer available in DMOZ. There are three primary reasons that sites might be removed, some temporary and some permanent. The list below explains these in detail.

The site was down when our automated tools scanned it.
Editors use a number of automated tools to help to keep the directory up-to-date. Occasionally a site is down when a tool checks the contents of a category. The first time this happens, the tool will flag the site but leave the directory listing intact. If the site is down again when the tool scans that category again (generally several days later), it will temporarily remove it so that an editor can provide a manual review & either restore it (if it is back online) or remove it. If you know that a site has recently been down for a few days for any reason, this is the most likely reason for its removal.

Note that sites that block our automated tools will appear to be down when they are scanned, so they may be removed for this reason. The same thing is true of sites that block editors who are attempting to review them. A page that can't be reviewed can't be listed in the directory.

The site is being moved to another category.
DMOZ is a living directory, so it is constantly growing and changing. Over time, some categories will grow larger and more complex and editors will split them into smaller, more specific sub-categories. When this happens, some sites will move out of the original category and into the new one. In most cases, category reorganizations are performed by editors with permissions in both the original category and in the new destination category, so the site simply moves to a new location.

If you think a site has moved and you're not sure of its new location, you can look for it by using the search feature within the directory. Note that you must use a "domain.extension" format in order for the search to return the correct results. For example, a user looking for Amazon's site would need to search for "amazon.com" rather than "www.amazon.com" in order for the search to return the desired results.

Occasionally, a site may move as the result of a content change rather than as the result of a category reorganization. When this happens, the site requires a new review and may be temporarily removed from public view until the destination category's editor has approved it.

The site is now unlistable.
There are three primary scenarios that will make a previously-listed site unlistable. The first is that the content of the site has changed and no longer meets our requirements for inclusion in the directory. It may no longer have unique content, or the purpose of the site may have changed (for example, if the domain name has been transferred to a new owner who alters its purpose). In this case, an editor would permanently remove the site from the directory. It will continue to be considered unlistable until such time as the site has been altered to meet our requirements.

The second scenario is that the site itself has not changed, but the listing guidelines for the directory overall (or the particular area of the directory where the site resides) have changed. In this case, an editor would also permanently remove the site from the directory.

The third scenario is that the site was originally listed in error - either as the result of a mistake, an editor's misunderstanding of the listing guidelines, or abuse - and should not have been listed in the directory in the first place.

Site owners sometimes express concern that their sites have been deleted due to editor corruption. While this is rare, there are unfortunately times when it occurs. We take corruption accusations very seriously, and remove any editor who is found to have acted in an abusive manner. If you feel that a site was removed in violation of the DMOZ editing guidelines, you can submit an abuse report (including all details and evidence) via our public abuse reporting system.

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