Dmoz.org is closing down

[agsgroup]

Can't say i'm sad! (never bothered to reply to me - even with paid fee listing!)

Corrupt u say?

[celena]

Good riddance. Was a corrupt and polluted format for well over a decade anyways.

Lol, it was time! I agree with you.

[sb2003]

Yes, I was, and some other folks here were as well in the past, like webzcas.

The process was a rather frustrating one at times, in terms of just trying to do a good job. There were tight restrictions on where you could edit, the culture was one with a great deal of hierarchy and mistrust (not surprising given that there were those who abused their role as editors), and issues were frequently dealt with behind closed doors.

I signed up here 14 years and 2 months ago, and this is my first post. Some kind of record I guess...

Unlike Michael and webzcas who had much more limited authority, more than a decade ago I edited the entire Dmoz Gambling category for about a year. I made about 15,000 edits (adding sites, changing descriptions, moving things between categories) plus deleted thousands of duplicate/spam/copied content submissions. In that entire time no one ever offered me a bribe. (Maybe they knew I was rich and it wouldn't work, but still, it never happened even once.)

Since it took literally ten minutes to become a Dmoz editor, why would anybody pay for a listing? The same people selling these listings probably were taking a break from their main job of emailing Nigerian bank scams.

Dmoz had a fossilized hierarchy, an oligarchy of people in control who were mostly there from the beginning... who didn't know a thing about gambling and cut the head off of (at least) two other editors besides me for trying to list Casinomeister, because they didn't like the way it looked. That was a problem. Another problem was webmasters complaining that a volunteer organization wasn't coming over to mow their lawn.

[ocreditor]

wow it's about time

[MichaelCorfman]

I had not made updates for a few months, so am currently locked out from editing, as happens if you don't make any updates for three months. And had reapplied to be able to do some work again. I had not been reinstated yet, and now I guess that will never happen.

Well, I discovered that I was actually reinstated as an editor, so I made a few edits today for old times sake. I was restricted to editing in a few select areas, so never could really add affiliate sites, since the categories I could edit in did not focus on areas where it was appropriate to list affiliate sites. I edited categories that covered areas such as upcoming gaming conferences, regulatory bodies, and affiliate programs on the gaming front. And I also edited the categories covering MIT, where I went to school, the town I grew up in, and the city where I currently live, plus a couple nearby localities. Looking at my editing records, I see I made a total of a little over 3,600 edits. So I guess I will go out as an active editor.

The fact that I could never edit sections of the directory that list affiliate sites is, in my view, an example of one of the reasons DMOZ was not more successful in recent years. The level of mistrust of the judgement of folks editing in gaming-related categories could be pretty significant, and my judgement was certainly disputed by others, behind my back (I only found out because of some security defects that allowed me to see the exact details and speculation that took place without my ever having been asked for an explanation). I did report the security loophole I discovered, and maybe that got me a little bit of respect. But the unsubstantiated speculation did result in some dominant sites I was involved with being delisted and marked as not suitable for publishing. As one example, www.rgtonline.com, I think the first online gaming portal site, was marked as unsuitable for listing and removed from the directory because Casino City acquired the site, and some of the content after the acquisition was also published on the CasinoCity.com website. Never mind that both sites were listed long before I was involved with dmoz. After I was involved it appears a couple of other editors went on a witch hunt and one of the results was that the rgtonline (Rolling Good Times Online) site was removed. Effectively I was deliberately punished for being an editor in a gambling category. I didn't quit, and redoubled my commitment to be an ethical editor in spite of what happened, but if my personality was different, it would have been very easy to make a decision to just walk away in anger. Instead I decided to take the route of continued participation on the grounds that the only way for the gambling categories to get to a better place was to edit within those categories in a way that was above reproach. But it did result in my staying away from many of the core gambling categories because I decided they could only be tackled after I had more editing experience, and then I ended up focusing more on the periphery since I decided I had a limited amount of time to edit anyway.

I signed up here 14 years and 2 months ago, and this is my first post. Some kind of record I guess...

Welcome to the forum as a new poster. I wish I had known before ... I would have welcomed the opportunity to discuss some of what I experienced with someone that knew the politics much better than I ever did.

Michael

[giovanni]

Thats a very bad news

[BeritTsiaklides]

Good riddance. Was a corrupt and polluted format for well over a decade anyways.

Agreed..

[DaveL]

It still seems to be very much alive at the moment...

[jennyperry]

I will miss the Dmoz because it is the only High ranked and popular directory site which I know.

[stgeorge]

Good bloody riddance. It became a fanboi club. Had nothing to do with site quality and everything with who you know.

[Gambleri]

I signed up here 14 years and 2 months ago, and this is my first post. Some kind of record I guess...

It was worth the wait!

I've learned so much from your contributions elsewhere. You becoming an active member would add a lot of value to this forum.

Dmoz had a fossilized hierarchy, an oligarchy of people in control who were mostly there from the beginning... who didn't know a thing about gambling and cut the head off of (at least) two other editors besides me for trying to list Casinomeister, because they didn't like the way it looked. That was a problem.

Yeah. I applied to become an editor of a certain gambling category a few years ago. Spent 5-6 hours working on the application (I'd imagine most people put much less effort into them).

After a few months of nothing, I posted on their forums and asked if there's any status update on the application. They replied that it usually takes a long time (6+ months) to review an editor application for gambling categories since few of the people who review these applications know anything about gambling. They weren't kidding -- as far as I know, that application is still waiting to be reviewed.

[sb2003]

I would have welcomed the opportunity to discuss some of what I experienced with someone that knew the politics much better than I ever did.
Michael

I didn't realize it at the time, but the best comparison to DMOZ was the Stanford Prison Experiment. People who were the editors (guards) enjoyed exercising their power arbitrarily; the submitters/webmasters (inmates) increased their own victimization by impotently bellyaching when more productive activity was possible. The most problematic and corrupt portion of the guards were the fossilized senior oligarchy who justified abuse of power by pointing at the worst 1% of criminals among the inmates (submitters spamming duplicate sites to dozens of categories)... and then vice versa.

The guards who just did their jobs and the inmates who followed their responsibilities were the victims in the middle between power-mad oligarchy and the spammy banner farm submitters. Even looking back on it now, we see the extremists on the oligarchy side still raging at the junk peddlers and the lazy submitters waving their arms at some mysterious unseen force that they blame for victimizing them.

One editor between these two fanatic groups could never manage to overcome the problems caused by these factions. There needed to be about a dozen honest people who joined the directory, originally outside the gambling categories, then worked together to advance in the hierarchy and educate both the oligarchy and the whining webmasters who wanted other people to volunteer to do something for them. (Gambleri, that was the way to go... don't initially apply to edit a gambling category. Instead edit the category for schools in your hometown, something like that, then after you are in, move on to the more controversial gambling section.)

Basically if you give a bunch of anal librarians with Asperger's syndrome the power to run the Internet, and then you have a larger bunch of lazy people yelling at the librarians to come over and mow their lawn... this is not going to end well.

[MichaelCorfman]

One editor between these two fanatic groups could never manage to overcome the problems caused by these factions. There needed to be about a dozen honest people who joined the directory, originally outside the gambling categories, then worked together to advance in the hierarchy and educate both the oligarchy and the whining webmasters who wanted other people to volunteer to do something for them. (Gambleri, that was the way to go... don't initially apply to edit a gambling category. Instead edit the category for schools in your hometown, something like that, then after you are in, move on to the more controversial gambling section.)

I agree completely. I did initially apply for and was accepted (after one initial rejection) to edit a gambling-related category (the section on gaming affiliate programs). But when I applied to edit a more central gambling category (poker I think), I was rejected. Then I applied to edit various categories with no relation to gaming (for geographic areas where I grew up and currently lived). Approval for those categories was straightforward. With a history of editing in non-controversial categories, I moved back into the gambling area, but on the business side, having responsibility for gambling related categories in the business section of the site.

I do note that the dmoz.org site was taken offline yesterday. There is a clone site that is a snapshot of what was at dmoz.org located here:

dmoztools.net

But it is a static snapshot, and there is no editor interface to make updates anymore.

Michael

[casaffiliate]

I didn't realize it at the time, but the best comparison to DMOZ was the Stanford Prison Experiment. People who were the editors (guards) enjoyed exercising their power arbitrarily; the submitters/webmasters (inmates) increased their own victimization by impotently bellyaching when more productive activity was possible. The most problematic and corrupt portion of the guards were the fossilized senior oligarchy who justified abuse of power by pointing at the worst 1% of criminals among the inmates (submitters spamming duplicate sites to dozens of categories)... and then vice versa.

The guards who just did their jobs and the inmates who followed their responsibilities were the victims in the middle between power-mad oligarchy and the spammy banner farm submitters. Even looking back on it now, we see the extremists on the oligarchy side still raging at the junk peddlers and the lazy submitters waving their arms at some mysterious unseen force that they blame for victimizing them.

One editor between these two fanatic groups could never manage to overcome the problems caused by these factions. There needed to be about a dozen honest people who joined the directory, originally outside the gambling categories, then worked together to advance in the hierarchy and educate both the oligarchy and the whining webmasters who wanted other people to volunteer to do something for them. (Gambleri, that was the way to go... don't initially apply to edit a gambling category. Instead edit the category for schools in your hometown, something like that, then after you are in, move on to the more controversial gambling section.)

Basically if you give a bunch of anal librarians with Asperger's syndrome the power to run the Internet, and then you have a larger bunch of lazy people yelling at the librarians to come over and mow their lawn... this is not going to end well.

Just wanted to say that this is an extremely well written post. I like the analogy with The Stanford Prison Experiment.

[UltrasBet]

It was a prestigious thing a few years ago...

[ocreditor]

Directories now days are not so popular anyways...

[PROFRBcom]

Well damn. I never was even good enough to find a connection to someone "in the know" who could get me linked up. Mind you, my site was doing more traffic than most of the affiliate poker portals listed in there but my application was never approved

[Former Member 14]

Unfortunately 'power' goes to some folk's heads. Only have to take a look the Google support forums to see that 1'st hand.

[PROFRBcom]

Unfortunately 'power' goes to some folk's heads. Only have to take a look the Google support forums to see that 1'st hand.

FWIW, we recently used Google Support Forums to help us with a hacking issue. While they didn't solve our problem, we did have a couple people respond to us with suggestions.

[wonderpunter]

evey basic site that had a dmoz link would add 6 extra zeros to the price even if the site was junk, glad it's gone.. it's as relevant as PR toolbar rank