DMOZ is dead?

[chromate]

Okay, so DMOZ has supposedly had a hardware failure that means its editors have been locked out for over 10 days. Does this means that AOL are killing DMOZ as we know it? It does seem like something is going on. I mean what kind of hardware failure can't be fixed in 10 days? If AOL were really bothered about it they would surely have it back up by now.

I have this feeling of elation when I think about DMOZ shutting out all its editors. I mean, how are all those meta-editors going to get their power trips now :) And how many editors are going to lose income from all those back-handers.

DMOZ has been a complete wreck for as long as I can remember. If it shuts down or changes ownership and gets managed properly... Well... It's a sweet, sweet thought!

What's wrong with some speculation here and there? :)

[Chris]

I had my editor do like 220 submissions around 6 months ago... not a single one has been approved.

[KLB]

The death of DMOZ has been wished for by many of us for some time now. I think, however, this "hardware failure" being the final death blow might be too much to hope for.

[chromate]

Yeah, I think you're right to be honest. But perhaps it will mark some kind of change. Anything other than what we have now would be an improvement.

[cinemaeye]

It seems like such a great concept in theory, but it seems like it's always caused more frustration than anything else. It would be nice if someone figured out how to fix it as opposed to it just going away.

[KLB]

There is no way to fix it. The open source model does not work for something like this because the individual motives do not work towards the common good as it does with software development. Instead, individual motives (power, self-promotion, squelching of competitors, etc.) work against the collective good of the whole.

[Chris]

Their problem was in that they were too exclusive, especially with meta editors.

Wikipedia works because everyone can edit and in general people are good. Even if there are a few bad ones, the good people win by strength of numbers.

With DMOZ, and their small set of meta editors, they cannot rely on the general goodness of people and instead have to hope that the editor is good. Doesn't work out.

Instead of acting like teachers they acted like policemen, or worse, crooked policemen.

[KLB]

Wikipedia has the advantage of being able basically ban all but the most relevant links, DMOZ is all about links. Even if DMOZ was more like Wikipedia, it would simply become over run by spammers. DMOZ was supposed to be all about quality, the problem is defining what is and what is not a quality site is extremely subjective. I really don't see any way to fix the DMOZ model. I also think directories are pas say. Really the only one's who use directories are those who are trying to promote their sites. For the amount of work that goes into building and maintaining a directory like DMOZ, the amount of people who use it and benefit from those efforts is very small compared to other means of finding what one is looking for.

Seven years ago directories were very valuable because search engines were not very good. Today search engines have really matured and very rarely does one need to venture to a directory to find what they are looking for.

[Kyle]

The problem I have always had is if someone tried starting their own directory to the style of DMOZ, it may get banned or would not be able to spread pagerank.

And it's not like people want to get included in DMOZ for the traffic DMOZ sends.

[Chris]

Both good points.

But I still find the directory model useful, not DMOZ, but the directory model. I'll use Yahoo's directory from time to time.

[KLB]

I'll agree that directories could be very useful and there are times that I do use them. The problem is that they are too labor intensive if quality is a primary concern. As shown by DMOZ the volunteer route is not a reliable source of labor and Yahoo's model is flawed because it excludes sites that aren't able/willing to pay a high listing fee there by limiting the value of the directory.

[Website Guru]

Do you think that DMOZ might switch to payed listing after all? Many would be willing to get there no matter how much that costs...

[stymiee]

That would go against the principles DMOZ was founded on so it will probably never happen.

[MelodyAnn]

Has anyone heard any more about what is going on over there? I haven't really been searching for info on it, but this forum is actually the only place I have seen mention of the problems they are having, and I know I haven't been able to submit anything there for a month. Anyone hear/find any updates?

[stymiee]

The wikipedia entry says it is fixed but they are still testing and haven't rolled it out yet.

[yelena66]

I was trying to solve that too, without success.


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