I hate Dmoz!

[quentin]

I spent a while making my portfolio to become an editor. I found 3 very good competitor sites of mine that were not listed in my category. I typed up excellent descriptions. I wasn't half-assing it just to get in.

I didn't say your application was bad, just that it was necessary to be tough with first applications because most of them were like that.

Quest, I hear you, but understand that the way it is generally put is "dmoz sucks", "editors don't do their jo" etc. which is really annoying when you are an editor yourself and trying to do it well...

The essence of the problem is in the "power" dmoz has, acquired, mostly, by the fact that
1) the google directory uses it.
2) the google directory links to it from every page, making the links in dmoz itself almost as effective.

Google basically makes the choice to empower dmoz in some way, and probably they should be the ones solving the problem if there was any from their standpoint.

I somehow doubt they will though, because dmoz is useful to google. Not just to power this directory, but to bootstrap its index with a manually reviewed sites, these sites being given an advantage from being listed (the first two links pointing to them).

 

[James Goddard]

Indeed, the number of active editors is not sufficient to process the whole lot of submissions.

Then they should be getting rid of the inactive editors and replacing them with active ones.

Indeed, volunteering is a way to contribute to the project. However, sending a poor application that obviously shows that you only applied to get your site listed and didn't take the time to find 3 sites fitting the category and title/describe them complying with the rules won't get you in.

I dunno, I applied, with 3 great sites and complied with the rules. Took them 2 hours to reject my application with a form letter...this as apposed to months to actually list relevant sites?

 

[z3n]

they still have my site categorized as a "Flash move and flash based games site" and my site hasn't fit strongly in that category for over 2 years now. What sux about it is that the some of the Major search engines and Alexa take their lead from Dmoz.

Oh well.
Seriously though, you can't worry about that. If you can't get a grassroots following, or your own niche, wtf does DMOZ matter anyway?

 

[alexn817]

Hey guys
sorry i couldnt read all of this, but heres my story:
I submitted my site to dmoz too, and its on there now

they have very strict rules
you have to submit it under the exact right category (hard as that is)
also, I had a question so I clicked the email the editor button
less than an hour later I had a very nice and helpful reply back

 

[z3n]

...I had a question so I clicked the email the editor button
less than an hour later I had a very nice and helpful reply back

hmm. I'll try that and report back

 

[alexn817]

well, theres a lot of different editors
and i think they are volunteers
so i suppose it depends on what category you chose

 

[quentin]

Then they should be getting rid of the inactive editors and replacing them with active ones.

That's so easy to say lol. Hey dmoz, here's a thousand volunteer and active editors, get them!
There are not so many people willing to do the job.

I dunno, I applied, with 3 great sites and complied with the rules. Took them 2 hours to reject my application with a form letter...this as apposed to months to actually list relevant sites?

You probably just got lucky to get your application reviewed so quickly, mine got reviewed after at least 2 months. it's normal that this is faster than adding sites, because getting more editors is the only way to add sites faster.

Finally, i you got rejected, you probably got the reason why in that email. Either the category was not waiting for an editor, or your submission was wrong, or you were looking suspicious to want to be an editor just to add your site.
A good way to get past this last possible rejection cause is to apply to a category not directly related with your site, but for which you have some expertise. Then after editing this cat for a while and showing good editor skills you may get on with other cats, among which maybe the one you're mostly interested in.

 

[Smatil]

Categories without editors are left to editors from other categories (yes volunteers who volunteer! ) and in popular categories, the backlogs can be insane.

With the proliferation of spam and affiliate / adsense sites these days, it's no surprise that submission approvals take so long.

I volunteered for one of the SEO categories (don't recall which one - it was a while ago) and even before SEO became really mass-market popular there was a backlog of 300 sites. Now imagine having to trawl through 300 sites made by SEOs!

DMOZ is powerfull and I'm willing to bet there would be many many more disgruntled webmasters if they let every site in! Just imagine the impact that would have on the SERPs.

Smatil

 

[Kall]

The category I edit is a very small regional area of New Zealand, a township in fact.

It's quite quiet, and I am very keen to expand into other areas (to help this massive backlog) but have had no response to applications.

Is being a Greenbuster a good idea?

 

[l234244]

I have been an editor twice and been booted each time, the latest one happened this morning. Kind of weird because I came runner up in the newbie editors recently and I have a couple of emails saying I have done a great job from the meta staff. No warning, just stopped me from logging on. I had not even added any of my own sites, and had declared all affiliations. Go figure!

What a waste of time, close to 1000 edits, hundreds of hours clearing the categories up then they kick you as if you trash. I have asked over in RZ but the meta's seem to be ignoring it.

Advice to everyone, dont waste your time. They give you time to clear up the category/categories then the boot you, period.

 

[AWS]

Is being a Greenbuster a good idea?

This is better discussed in the internal dmoz editor forums or at RZ.

 

[stoic]

Being a DMOZ editor also, I can tell you that there is a huge backlog of sites, no editors for some categories, and a lot of impatient site owners. Asking them to find new editors is kind of tough, because the person that has to do this is volunteering their time. Which I can tell you, these meta editors log on to a full box of email, PM's galore, and have to deal with site submissions also.

I agree that the system they have in existance doesn't work that well, but it is the largest directory on the web, so it's all we have for now.

 

[l234244]

For how many editors there is there shouldnt be a backlog. I had about 20 categories in the end, all I did was try to do 20 edits a day, oldest to new. When I got my first category there were sites that were submitted 4 years previously and this was a category only 2 levels deep.

 

[stoic]

I logged in to the same thing. Obviously though, when your volunteering, people will come and go. Some might be busy and forget about their category for months at a time. Take a look at the forum logs here, I wonder what percentage of the members here have been active for 1 year when compared to signups. People tend to move on, it's just in there nature.