Approximately three years ago I was heavily involved with the DMOZ Directory project, where supposed subject matter experts edit and add websites to the categorized directory. At the height of my editing I had sole control over 4 sections that where built up to nearly 10,000 links.
The majority of these links had been categorized and entered by me. It took a great deal of time. I never had what they call edit-all access to the very top levels. But I did have several major subcategories. My experience over the 2 years I edited my piece of the directory was this, those that had edit-all access would come in and review your entries and if they felt you where not doing a good enough job you would get a warning etc.
I never received a solitary warning just comments of praise. One editor though would send me negative comments from time to time, she was a absolute bitch and always complained about a certain sub-level section of a government category.
I later realized from reading her personnel website that the area did not agree with her politics. I also found that she would come in and do mass deletions in the sub-category area that she complained to me about.
I am very fair person and felt that I went above and beyond the call of duty when it came to editing all of the sections fairly. Then one day I noticed that I had a co-editor and he and I exchanged a significant number of e-mails, he basically told me that he was being put in charge and I would soon be removed from editing. That in fact turned out to be true, several weeks later my account was locked out and I no longer had access to the areas I had built up from scratch.
To add insult to injury the new Editor was from Europe and he was now in charge of editing areas of the DMOZ that was a Regional American area. He systematically destroyed a significant portion of my work and strange new entries where added.
I joined the 100’s of people who were very disgruntled ex-editors. I found that if your politics did not match the edit-all system admins of the area you where editing then you where systematically removed. I have not visited the DMOZ since and I do not believe in the project as the administrators opinions and biases are at work, those in power are as thick as thieves.
Upon my removal I crawled the area and created a backup on my hard-drive. Comparing it today to what it was 3 years ago makes my blood boil as their are significantly less entries with a great number that are categorized wrong etc. Not to mention the majortiy of the old links are still valid URL’s Do not even think about helping the DMOZ unless you suck up to the edit-all’s.
The reason I am discussing this today is I received an article in my inbox that ignited old fires and felt it was time to talk about it, and solicit feedback from anyone with similar experiences or are current editors. [Webproworld]