Allowing multiple DMOZ editors per category
Dmoz is facing two problems:
1) Accusations are flying fast and furious (do a search for "corrupt dmoz editors") about how corrupt SEO practitioners who are able to monopolize editorialship of commercial categories, are selling Dmoz listings and worse, deliberately failing to include or even removing(!) sites being SEO-ed by their rivals.
2) There is a general perception that it just takes too long to get sites listed. Whether this is due to lack of manpower or due to nastiness by corrupt editors is secondary to the fact that the worth of Dmoz itself is lessened if it is unable to include sites in a timely manner.
There is a simple solution here that should benefit everyone involved (with the exception of corrupt editors). The solution is to allow multiple editors per category. This way there would be more manpower to handle submissions for a particular category and the power of a single corrupt editor is greatly minimized.
A new site listing needs only one editor for it to be listed, but to _remove_ a site listing would need the approval of more than 50% of editors for a particular category. SEO practitioners would still be encouraged to gain dmoz editorialship (adding manpower to the dmoz effort - a positive thing), but would be greatly neutralized in using this position for nefarious purposes. With more manpower allocated per category, it should also become feasible again to revive the practice of giving explanations for why a site is not listed.
Other possible anti-Dmoz corruption tactics would be to reinstitute means to identify and contact the editors for a particular category. Perhaps some public statistics revealing how much work an editor is actually doing (e.g. sites reviewed:listed ratio) would encourage them to be more honest (or hardworking). If there is a cap on the number of editors for a possible category, then perhaps editors who do not perform up to par can be booted out in favor of newer ones.
1) Accusations are flying fast and furious (do a search for "corrupt dmoz editors") about how corrupt SEO practitioners who are able to monopolize editorialship of commercial categories, are selling Dmoz listings and worse, deliberately failing to include or even removing(!) sites being SEO-ed by their rivals.
2) There is a general perception that it just takes too long to get sites listed. Whether this is due to lack of manpower or due to nastiness by corrupt editors is secondary to the fact that the worth of Dmoz itself is lessened if it is unable to include sites in a timely manner.
There is a simple solution here that should benefit everyone involved (with the exception of corrupt editors). The solution is to allow multiple editors per category. This way there would be more manpower to handle submissions for a particular category and the power of a single corrupt editor is greatly minimized.
A new site listing needs only one editor for it to be listed, but to _remove_ a site listing would need the approval of more than 50% of editors for a particular category. SEO practitioners would still be encouraged to gain dmoz editorialship (adding manpower to the dmoz effort - a positive thing), but would be greatly neutralized in using this position for nefarious purposes. With more manpower allocated per category, it should also become feasible again to revive the practice of giving explanations for why a site is not listed.
Other possible anti-Dmoz corruption tactics would be to reinstitute means to identify and contact the editors for a particular category. Perhaps some public statistics revealing how much work an editor is actually doing (e.g. sites reviewed:listed ratio) would encourage them to be more honest (or hardworking). If there is a cap on the number of editors for a possible category, then perhaps editors who do not perform up to par can be booted out in favor of newer ones.
posted by Coderboi at
4:49 PM
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5 comments
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