minstrel
12-18-2006, 09:10 AM
DMOZ had 9 lives. Used up yet? (http://www.skrenta.com/2006/12/dmoz_had_9_lives_used_up_yet.html)
by Rich Skrenta (one of the DMOZ/ODP founders)
RIP DMOZ: 1998-2006
aka Open Directory Project
aka Netscape Open Directory
aka directory.mozilla.org
aka NewHoo (http://www.skrenta.com/nh/)
aka GnuHoo
Peter Da Vanzo: Is DMOZ Dead? (http://blog.v7n.com/2006/11/20/is-dmoz-dead/)
Tom Lustina: Here Lies ODP (http://seoblog.intrapromote.com/2006/12/here_lies_odp.html)
Sean Bolton: DMOZ, Please Die Already (http://seoblog.intrapromote.com/2006/12/dmoz_please_die.html)
Resource Zone: submit URL link not working (http://www.resource-zone.com/forum/showthread.php?t=45292)
Trond Sorvoja: Will AOL allow a Open Directory Foundation? (http://sorvoja.com/56/will-aol-allow-a-open-directory-foundation/)
Apparently the machine holding dmoz in AOL ops crashed. Standard backups had been discontinued for some reason; during unsuccessful attempts to restore some of the lost data, ops blew away the rest of the existing data on the system.
So for the past 6 weeks, a few folks have been trying to patch the system back together again (reverse engineering from the latest RDF dump, I suppose). But 6 weeks is a very long outage. Add in the massive AOL layoffs last week, and it's not clear if there's even any left over there who cares. Even if some form of the ODP editing system is brought back, the likelihood of continued existence within AOL seems extremely doubtful.
dmoz doesn't exactly operate on a model of transparency, to say the least, so they have been keeping the details of what happened private. Perhaps they're concerned about an exodus of the remaining editors, or gleeful proclamations of death from the SEM industry. The remaining ODP editors will probably be mad at me for discussing this, but they get mad at me whenever I talk about the ODP....ironic! :-) Hey guys, it's 2006, open up.
...
In a 2003 talk, I predicted that the server would get lost in AOL ops, and, deprived of any staff who understood how it worked, it would just crash one day, and that would be it.
My (edited) reply to a dmoz meta editor who contacted me about the extended outage:
Not sure if you all have been following the drama going on within AOL, but I doubt they have any attention for dmoz at all at this point, less even than usual. In fact, my guess is that everyone involved in the management chain there over dmoz for the past 6 years is now gone.
http://www.brianalvey.com/2006/12/15/just-add-drama/
http://valleywag.com/tech/aol/fucking-way-222195.php
So regardless of the tactics of whether specific front-line people in AOL ops can get the machine running again or not, I doubt that the environment there will be very good in the longer term. All of the folks there who had been championing product-lead growth are now gone. One possible outcome is that Time Warner is slimming AOL down for an eventual spin-out. A more cynical take is that they're going to deliberately torture the org first, as payback for the destruction in Time/Warner value following the AOL merger (this idea was put forward in an NY Times story a few months ago).
I do think it's a great time for a new directory to emerge, and human editing, if supported by sufficient technical automation to make them sufficiently productive, could be a powerful model. Bob Keating's ideas around building a faceted directory are spot-on IMO.
However, I maintain my belief that, without a monetary engine -- in other words, without making the directory a business at some level -- dependence on corporate patronage will eventually leave it weak and understaffed again. One option I might suggest is to look at something like Jimmy Wales' new Wikia service, and see if it could fit the bill, at least at some level. If so, the dmoz editors could move over there and start building again.
WikiPedia is another model to consider. It seems to have depended on patronage, and has probably been limited in the past by resource constraints. Modest advertising (e.g. adsense/adwords on search) on dmoz could easily have supported a staff of 10-20 full time employees, as well as hosting costs. Call it a nonprofit foundation, but you need the entity and some money coming in to pay for things like...proper ops (gosh you could have that from Rackspace for a monthly fee, including backups :-).
But unlikely to be possible within AOL, I'm afraid. I ran a scan of the forums to estimate active editorship...I count approx 4000 recent posters to the forums, given the old 50% measurement that suggests about 8-10k active editors -- plenty to build something fairly interesting again in a relatively short time.
...
by Rich Skrenta (one of the DMOZ/ODP founders)
RIP DMOZ: 1998-2006
aka Open Directory Project
aka Netscape Open Directory
aka directory.mozilla.org
aka NewHoo (http://www.skrenta.com/nh/)
aka GnuHoo
Peter Da Vanzo: Is DMOZ Dead? (http://blog.v7n.com/2006/11/20/is-dmoz-dead/)
Tom Lustina: Here Lies ODP (http://seoblog.intrapromote.com/2006/12/here_lies_odp.html)
Sean Bolton: DMOZ, Please Die Already (http://seoblog.intrapromote.com/2006/12/dmoz_please_die.html)
Resource Zone: submit URL link not working (http://www.resource-zone.com/forum/showthread.php?t=45292)
Trond Sorvoja: Will AOL allow a Open Directory Foundation? (http://sorvoja.com/56/will-aol-allow-a-open-directory-foundation/)
Apparently the machine holding dmoz in AOL ops crashed. Standard backups had been discontinued for some reason; during unsuccessful attempts to restore some of the lost data, ops blew away the rest of the existing data on the system.
So for the past 6 weeks, a few folks have been trying to patch the system back together again (reverse engineering from the latest RDF dump, I suppose). But 6 weeks is a very long outage. Add in the massive AOL layoffs last week, and it's not clear if there's even any left over there who cares. Even if some form of the ODP editing system is brought back, the likelihood of continued existence within AOL seems extremely doubtful.
dmoz doesn't exactly operate on a model of transparency, to say the least, so they have been keeping the details of what happened private. Perhaps they're concerned about an exodus of the remaining editors, or gleeful proclamations of death from the SEM industry. The remaining ODP editors will probably be mad at me for discussing this, but they get mad at me whenever I talk about the ODP....ironic! :-) Hey guys, it's 2006, open up.
...
In a 2003 talk, I predicted that the server would get lost in AOL ops, and, deprived of any staff who understood how it worked, it would just crash one day, and that would be it.
My (edited) reply to a dmoz meta editor who contacted me about the extended outage:
Not sure if you all have been following the drama going on within AOL, but I doubt they have any attention for dmoz at all at this point, less even than usual. In fact, my guess is that everyone involved in the management chain there over dmoz for the past 6 years is now gone.
http://www.brianalvey.com/2006/12/15/just-add-drama/
http://valleywag.com/tech/aol/fucking-way-222195.php
So regardless of the tactics of whether specific front-line people in AOL ops can get the machine running again or not, I doubt that the environment there will be very good in the longer term. All of the folks there who had been championing product-lead growth are now gone. One possible outcome is that Time Warner is slimming AOL down for an eventual spin-out. A more cynical take is that they're going to deliberately torture the org first, as payback for the destruction in Time/Warner value following the AOL merger (this idea was put forward in an NY Times story a few months ago).
I do think it's a great time for a new directory to emerge, and human editing, if supported by sufficient technical automation to make them sufficiently productive, could be a powerful model. Bob Keating's ideas around building a faceted directory are spot-on IMO.
However, I maintain my belief that, without a monetary engine -- in other words, without making the directory a business at some level -- dependence on corporate patronage will eventually leave it weak and understaffed again. One option I might suggest is to look at something like Jimmy Wales' new Wikia service, and see if it could fit the bill, at least at some level. If so, the dmoz editors could move over there and start building again.
WikiPedia is another model to consider. It seems to have depended on patronage, and has probably been limited in the past by resource constraints. Modest advertising (e.g. adsense/adwords on search) on dmoz could easily have supported a staff of 10-20 full time employees, as well as hosting costs. Call it a nonprofit foundation, but you need the entity and some money coming in to pay for things like...proper ops (gosh you could have that from Rackspace for a monthly fee, including backups :-).
But unlikely to be possible within AOL, I'm afraid. I ran a scan of the forums to estimate active editorship...I count approx 4000 recent posters to the forums, given the old 50% measurement that suggests about 8-10k active editors -- plenty to build something fairly interesting again in a relatively short time.
...
