dmoz fraud

[WCD Admin]

Looks like a bundle of trash is on the conveyor headed to the furnace.

That's cool.... can you elaborate at all? Thanks!

 

[Online18Casino]

over the past 6 years I have tryed to get countless sites into dmoz (none casino related).. But just submited my casino last months.. hoping for luck.

 

[Aussie-Dave]

What annoys me, you follow the dmoz guidelines to the enth degree, submit your site and it either gets knocked back or not even reviewed.

However take a stroll through the gambling related directories. Sites are listed that shouldn't be. They blatantly encroach the acceptable submission criteria for dmoz. But they're listed all the same.

I've succeeded in having one casino portal listed in dmoz, albeit that was back in 2002. Since then got a non gaming site listed in 2006.

Dmoz still has value, especially given sites still use the RDF dump. That in itself can add up to hundreds of 1wlb's.

I've got a site with Google site-wide links, even that can't obtain a dmoz listing. What hope is there? None!


Cheers



Dave

 

[Webzcas]

As a DMOZ Editor since October 2009, I am going to plagarise a post I made on the GPWA about the directory a few weeks back. As it is just as relevant in this thread as it was over on the GPWA.

As an editor myself, who also edits in the gambling categories as well as other parts of the directory, I would like to make a few comments also, in addition to the good points raised by Michael. My editor profile is here: Profile - webzcas

The gambling categories have in my experience, been left pretty much alone compared to other categories, due to the vast amount of spam submitted daily. Therefore to identify a gem of a site from the public suggestions, can take a considerable while, whilst you review countless sites which are nothing more than adcopy, hype, link farms to get to said gem of a site.

Should you feel a site, should not warrant inclusion and goes against the Gambling Guidelines, then please report on the Resource Zone ( Link to main forum on my DMOZ Profile )

Should you feel an editor is abusing their position, then please file an abuse report. When filing an abuse report, please include as much substantive information as possible. Abuse reports, are given high priority by the senior editors and are dealt with quickly. Please also bear in mind, every action an editor makes in his role is logged.

Another point I would like to make, is that all editors have to disclose in full all their affiliations and associations. Any editor that does not, is going against the guidelines and could be removed as an editor. By affiliations, this means any site you own, or any site you have worked on, or owned in the past and subsequently sold on. If you moderate on a forum which you don't own, in my case Casinomeister.com, this also has to be disclosed.

Another misconception is about editors listing their own sites. I would like to point out, is that it is perfectly okay for an editor to list their own website, if it meets the category guidelines and DMOZ listing guidelines. Senior editors are aware of this and normally review such action.

When you are first accepted as a DMOZ Editor, it is usual that any and all edits you perform are reviewed by more senior editors.

Final point. No one site is guaranteed a listing for life. Sites get added and removed all the time. The purpose of the directory is to provide a quality resource to the end user.

If you want to improve the quality of the directory, then apply to become an editor. The application is not hard, although does take a bit of time and care to complete. When applying for a category, it is very important that you disclose any and all affiliations you have. Contrary to the myth on some forums, new editors are accepted on a daily basis.

 

[arkyt]

How many sites in your cat(s) are owned by the same individual?

How many times do you have your own site(s) listed?

 

[6digits]

Dmoz

Maybe I am silly or asking a stupid question, but what is DMOZ????

 

[Webzcas]

How many sites in your cat(s) are owned by the same individual?

How many times do you have your own site(s) listed?

Arkyt,

If you are referring to Online Casino Reviewer. That was added way before I was an editor to the Gambling/Chats_and_Forums category. With regards it's other listing in Guides, that was deemed suitable as it was one of my suggested sites in my editors application.

As I mentioned in my above post, editors have to disclose all their site affiliations.

If you have an issue, then please report it. The same goes for any site networks who have multiple listings.

 

[arkyt]

I guess I will have to clean guides next ...

 

[WCD Admin]

Hmm, I've noticed some changes in there recently. Since this thread happened I went to dmoz.org and tried to get a couple sites accepted.... actually I think I did three sites and at least one was listed.... (I didn't pay enough attention) But I think it was.

I also watch some competitors out of the corner of my eye just to see how they are doing.... and one that used to have boat-loads of links in dmoz seems to have lost a lot of them. And been moved out of my category and into another one...

So I'm just curious on a general level what the shakeup is... and your messages Arkyt... have peeked my curiosity. Can you tell us what you're up to? Of course I understand if its secret.

 

[Webzcas]

I went to dmoz.org and tried to get a couple sites accepted.... actually I think I did three sites and at least one was listed....

Well that is actually against the guidelines if they were submitted to the same branch. As a rule if you have several sites in one particular field, gambling in this case, only your MAIN site is listable. All others are deemed as unlistable.

Here is an article I wrote regards submitting sites to DMOZ, if you are interested.

http://www.onlinecasinoreviewer.co.uk/dmozandwebmasters.htm

 

[Webzcas]

This is NOT common DMOZ practice, most succesful webmasters do have 1 or more gambling sites listed next to their main site.

Just do a quick search for /gambling/guides/ and compare with /gambling/guides/reviews you see who has 2 or more listings...........

Please send me a pm with details or an email via my Dmoz profile.

 

[inspiration]

You can do this check as an editor yourself it is not difficult, if you need help PM me.

 

[dominique]

Lol, I just tried to look and my eyes got blurry after a few minutes of staring at these. Had to stop and didn't find a dupe.

 

[dominique]

DMOZ needs a better page layout. It's difficult to compare anything to anything because all the listings flow together. You can read down a page, but comparing two becomes an eye and memory challenging thing.

It should have a crisper layout. This page http://search.dmoz.org/cgi-bin/sear.../Gambling/Guides&utf8=1&locale=en_us&start=41 is alpabetically all mixed. I wonder what the criteria in the listing sequence are.

 

[WCD Admin]

The sites I tried to get listed were completely different (these are not even online gambling sites) they are geographic sites and for different locations. So anyway - I am not meaning to skirt the rules. Hope I have not violated anything. However I might have recently submitted by subdomain online.worldcasinodirectory.com... oops ... that seems to be a violation.

In my message, I was just curious if anything is going on at dmoz like Arkt seems to be hinting at ... I was curious to be enlightened as to whats going on if anything ?

edited to comment on Dom's last post: I also wonder about sequencing. If I look up 'World Casino Directory' it shows up UNDER a site called 'World Casinos Directory' which seems unfair to me since this is my proper-name (which I used for my site as directed by dmoz guidelines) in addition my site is older than this one. In addition, my search for "world casino directory" would logically show up the direct match first, right? It appears this site shows up because they repeated a word "directory" (which guidelines direct you not to do) ... anyway ... not worried about it, just curious.

 

[arkyt]

Been busy getting shaved so I haven't spent any time with dmoz since I last worked on getting soem cats cleaned out ... I think Ill get ready to clean another one or two!

 

[Webzcas]

<sigh>

Go for it Arkyt, I will be very interested as I am sure other editors will with your findings.

 

[Engineer]

Looks like Jackpot Graphs was deleted -- not sure why. Oh well...

 

[arkyt]

Go for it Arkyt ....

The days of the opportunist listing their own sites and their pals sites while keeping others out needs to come to an end. If thats not you then you dont have anything to worry about.

Oh and FYI - this is going by Google desk too so when this project is completed - expect to be out of Google too!

 

[NoDepositCasino]

What is your feeling if any regarding dmoz editor fraud? Do you think its ok to game the dmoz system or is it unethical?

There are a handful of individuals gaming the system and no doubt getting pretty rich doing so! These guys think they are pretty smart - heck they've been getting away with it for years, but IMO its time to shut them down and level the playing field.

If we want to clean up the industry - this is one area that needs a good scrubbing!

I personally believe that this will get cleaned up sooner or later - and any benefits from it are short lived.