Subscribe
DMOZ Meta Editors
August 27th, 2007 by 
Jay Westerdal
I just read a blog post from ShoeMoney that made my head spin. He said he got an email from an editor at DMOZ which demanded $5,000 or his site would be de-listed. He ignored the email and a few days later the guy emailed again letting him know he had been delisted and that he should re-think the $5,000 offer. Sure enough he had been delisted. Instead of caving in he blogged about it. The best weapon against corruption is a huge public spotlight.
A lot of people that I talk to don’t understand what DMOZ is. It is an Open Directory run by AOL (formerly Netscape) that lists websites along with a small description next to them. It is considered by a lot of people to be the start of the Internet. If you designed a search engine crawler this could be the first site you would crawl and from there you could reach any other site. Sort of a 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon thing but for the web. Any way, Google and Microsoft both use this website as one of their primary building blocks for crawling the web. At least that has been the case historically. There are so many clones of the site now that getting listed in the DMOZ (or AKA ODP Open Directory Project) it can still carry a lot of weight.
For a number of years Whois.sc (AKA DomainTools) has been assisting editors of DMOZ for free. We help the DMOZ editors by giving away free access to premium DomainTools memberships. The tools we provide help those editors maintain and groom the directory. There are so many DMOZ editors we limited our donation to only the top editors. The highest status an Editor can be is Meta, then comes EditAll, then comes the normal editors. We currently have 2 Staff, 108 Meta Editors, and 8 EditAlls using our system. You can’t apply for this membership class through any sign-up form on our site. A few select DMOZ staff editors have an interface at DomainTools for granting special access to these Meta Editors.
I honestly think most of the editors are good and try to do there best to create the best human edited directory of websites in the world. Corruption can happen in any organization so I hope this situation is resolved quickly and that the bad apple is thrown out. Abusing a position like that is just down right sick. I have seen too many meta editors spend years of their life organizing the web for no pay at all to start believing tails that DMOZ as a whole is corrupt. Just as Police have Internal Affairs that investigate other Police the DMOZ has a system too. The abuse reporting system is located at http://report-abuse.dmoz.org. This site will investigate reports of abuse and take action. I would encourage people to submit reports of abuse directly to this page.
I often wonder why some of the editors would serve for free, could it be to get better placement for their sites. It would be nice to see a few paid editors that have taken a vow of no affiliation with any site. I don’t think there is enough transparency in the DMOZ system. Sites like Wikipedia have that transparency because every edit is being watched and it goes directly back to a user’s history. I helped start AboutUs.org because I thought it would be a way for everyone to edit a web directory. I think there is plenty of room for more directories. DMOZ is not perfect but I don’t think it is broken either. I would like to see more transparency at DMOZ in the future.
« Newer Post Older Post »
August 27th, 2007 at 11:19 pm
Off-topic, but you mentioned it: “I helped start AboutUs.org…”
What a horribly obnoxious product. If for no other reason because it’s development in marketing terms seems to based on a cross promotion promotion strategy with registrars. This is an abuse of the whois system, and it obfuscates everyone’s efforts to stop absue of whois records.
In eNom’s case, you could even argue that it is a breach of the whois terms and conditions. I find extremely objectionable that registrars are using my data (and my registration fee) to promote a third party business. This harks back to an internet of 1987, where we had a free and sponsored service option.
I understand there is some VC money in the mix now, so no doubt there is no stopping it. But the least they can do is enable registrants to opt-out of promoting the dam thing.
As I say, you mentioned (admitted) it.
Nic
UPDATE BY JAY: I agree, it is off topic, but I also agree there should be an opt-out per user. A user should be given a choice to opt-out of having it on their whois record. You should talk with your registrar and they may enable that choice for you.
August 28th, 2007 at 12:45 am
Around 98 I was the editor of a popular top level category so I know very well how this works.
I confirm there was corruption before I came, during and I guess it strongly increased these past years due to the high SEO pressure.
By the way I am wondering the effects that AdSense have done in DMOZ editors… I guess they have been dramatic.
Yes, it’s well known that a significant percentage of editors are abusing of their position to make money, help their company and friends get more links but also try blocking the listings of competitors.
As soon there are 2 friend editors it become very easy to do what you want without risk: I help my friend who return me the favor…
Now the sample you given is an exception, this guy is an IDIOT and should quickly be caught because all the changes are saved.
…
August 28th, 2007 at 12:48 am
Here’s an interesting thread on this matter:
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=13402&page=3
Some could argue that the webmaster in that case was trying to bribe his was into DMOZ. It’s pretty well known that one of the best ways to make sure your site is NEVER listed is to offer a bribe. (The other way is to use DMOZ data without attribution).
There may well be much more to this statement than meets the eye. Remember that DMOZ editors aren’t allowed to discuss these things, so you’re likely to get a very one-sided view of the argument.
Of course, this isn’t to say that someone DIDN’T contact them about the site, but without seeing the evidence it is hard to be certain exctly what the full story is.
August 28th, 2007 at 4:46 am
No offense guys but I’ve been emailed and told I could get into DMOZ for the price and without I wouldn’t. A lot of the sections are very corrupt, and usually controlled by an editor who abuses and sales those sites. I know in the niche I am in there is no chance I can get in without paying the editor quit a bit of money and I told him to fuck off, just makes me mad anyone trust DMOZ, esp since I reported the guy several times and nothing has been done.
August 28th, 2007 at 6:44 am
Green Knight, what you outline is soooooo true.
August 28th, 2007 at 9:40 am
I find it varies greatly from site to category to category. I have never had anyone email me and ask me for money, but certainly I have found that some of my sites get in with no trouble at all and other ones - nothing ever happens. I had no idea there was so much corruption in DMOZ. I can certainly understand the pressures from companies, but I also know the power search engines give them as well.
–
Max … Out!
http://www.cmyos.com - free online operating system
September 11th, 2007 at 6:58 am
With great power comes great responsibility. But greed will always tempt in the middle and some will just succumb to it. DMOZ is going down if not already — Google anything and you’d likely end up on Wikipedia instead of Dmoz. Who are using these critically outdated and poorly maintained directories anymore these days, hehe?
Yes, I would like to see more transparencies at DMOZ like Wikipedia as well… like publicizing IP addresses of edits etc. We’ve all the while been so surprised on how CNN and Geocities get incredible listings (by over/nearly a hundred thousand times while many millions other sites can’t even get listed) in Dmoz when these two are not the definitive resource of information these days — there seem to be more blogs at blogspot than free-hosted sites at Geocities etc today.
And if bias is not the case at Dmoz, how on earth would a rather new site by its founder, Topix.net, that’s far from being in the league of 100 most popular/recognizable sites, garnered nearly 20,000 listings for itself (at 6th place just one step behind AOL.com)? That’s an obvious corruption to the highest level to me.
‘Open’ Directory? Not so open anymore eh?
January 18th, 2008 at 9:29 pm
I think so this topic. But I think it have difficultly for adding DMOZ.
April 13th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
I think the DMOZ is absolutely pathetic in both precipal and execution. Isn’t Goodle doing the same thing with their own search engine by assigning page rank? And the last time I checked Google didn’t solicite payment to be included. Hell, I started http://benchmarkreviews.com over a year ago, and today it’s getting 165,000 uniques per month. You might think that a top-100K site like mine would be listed by now, but it’s “in the queue”.
Forget DMOZ… I await the day it dies and everyone’s foul effort is erased. Such a miserable tool that too many “oldschool” players still use.
(NOTE) I suspect that some corrupt DMOZ editor might read this and remove my site from the list or ensure that I never get listed… which is fine. You’ve just proven my point, and the lack of listing hasn’t exactly held me back thus far.