Comments on “DMOZ In Danger? Not So Much, Says DMOZ Editor”

DMOZ In Danger? Not So Much, Says DMOZ Editor

2009-06-10T14:23:15-04:00

I think a wiki would be more natural platform for something that relies on lots of people making small contributions.

It is possible to have fairly strict editing permissions in a wiki, such as all edits going to moderation queue.

DMOZ In Danger? Not So Much, Says DMOZ Editor

2009-06-10T18:52:01-04:00

Eric,
This is a really on point article. I am also a DMOZ editor and have to agree that the overall layout and tools are insane. When DMOZ was created it was a great resource and designed to the standards of the day. However, it is now so easy to create a link directory site using WordPress and a free plugin that it's embarrassing that DMOZ can't do better.

AOL would be well served to offload the project to someone that could bring it back into relevance.

I'm not going to hold my breath...

Eric H. Doss

DMOZ In Danger? Not So Much, Says DMOZ Editor

2009-08-27T23:26:04-04:00

Update:

DMOZ has been working on an updated project for over a year now. I haven't noticed it until now because, well, they don't talk about it much and it's progressing at a snail's pace. DMOZ 2.0 though, is what's being done from what I can gather.

The following timeline is posted in the forum:
Project Plans and Schedules

Current Deliverables:

26-Feb: Solr Search API (completed)
11-Mar: Event system (completed)
15-Mar: Implemented (Feature Complete) – Backend API (Phase 1) (completed)
26-Mar: UI Prototype (completed)
04-Apr: Data Conversion (to include ontology, URL, Editor info/notes/logs) (working)
11-Apr: Node term converter and backend API (completed)
23-Apr: DMOZ UI (dmoz.org for normal user) (working)
25-Apr: Front End UI Demo (completed)
________________________________________

30-Jun: Begin Product Beta
15-Aug: Final Product Readiness Review
21-Aug: Dev/QA/Ops, Final build delivered - Production Ready
28-Aug: Product target Launch

So the planned release is very close. I suppose we'll wait and see how it looks in 2 months.

DMOZ In Danger? Not So Much, Says DMOZ Editor

2009-11-09T10:19:07-05:00

DMOZ became important again because Google thought it was. It's off and on whether Google pay great attention to DMOZ or little, but they do pay attention. This has led site owners and more often so-called SEOs to abuse the editor positions in many of DMOZ's commerically important categories. I've struggled for 6 years to get a couple of sites on a particular category, which started off with 20 entries and now has just three, one of which is obviously SEO'd by the editor. The other two are irrelevant and mostly non-commercial, and apparently only there for appearances. DMOZ itself isn't corrupt, but the stakes are too great for individuals not to try to use it to their advantage. In my particular field, the number one slot in Google is worth a million dollars a year, and the number 5 slot is worth next to nothing. Don't tell me there is no motivation to manipulate DMOZ when Google treats it as relevant. These guys pay $10k a month for SEO. A little free DMOZ manipulation is just the icing on the cake, and that's not going to change if google uses it in any way in teir calculations.