DMOZ Birthday

Wow time flies! Today marks my 4th ODP birthday, so HAPPY BIRTHDAY to me!

Hard to believe 4 years ago today, some nutty Meta editor (whom will remain nameless at least to non-editors, to protect their own reputation ) goofed and pushed that accept button on my third (or so) editor application by mistake, instead of rejecting it. Hey everyone makes a mistake every now and then, right? Oh well I am glad they took that risk and let me try and break some things. Its been a fun roller coaster ride so far. Looking forward to the next four years.

I have been so swamped in real life I haven’t logged in to edit for quite a while now. I think I made a couple of edits a couple of weeks ago. I didn’t even realize my birthday was today, until an old friend turned ex-editor sent me a nice email a little while ago. I happened to be on line at the time and it spurred me to do some work.

What I did tonight:

• Reinstated a few editors who were requesting it.
• Cleared a few Reds from Indiana.
• Updated several URL’s adding some new one’s to save some of those reds.
• Caught up on email and the forums.

Later I might pop over to RZ and see what I have been missing as well. If I owe you a response its time to bump me again, as I think I got to everything I was lacking on. I hope to get more time online soon. I am also suffering many ISP related issues. My provider can’t seem to maintain a steady broadband signal to my area. My signal and connection is intermittent at best and often goes out in the middle of browsing.

Until next time!

DMOZ Turns 10 – DMOZ Blog

DMOZ Turns 10 – DMOZ Blog

The Official DMOZ Blog has now published its vision of celebrating 10 years online. The article, written by the Editor in Chief – Bob Keating is pretty good and I am glad to see it was updated. Its a fairly long post with some interesting details, so I won’t be quoting any of it. I did still want to mention it though.

I note that there is a hint as to some of the future enhancements in the works for our data users. That bit sounds interesting and exciting, all though way over my head. Will be curious to see some of the various implementations when the come on line.

DMOZ – 10 Years Of Slowly Dying

Well today marks the 10th birthday for The Open Directory Project. Seems about time for the “oh the days are numbered for DMOZ” comments to start springing up again. Next month, I will celebrate my 4th birthday with the project and I have heard those comments since day one. Must be a slow and agonizing death.

The fact remains that the directory is still alive. It has survived and continues to grow, even after needing a little life support, during the Great Crash. Through times of terrible stewardship from its corporate parent, baseless smear attempts, unfounded allegations, technical difficulties, some real abuse, and bombardment of spam attempts, its still moving forward. All be it more slowly than the editors would like.

The reason that this project is still going, is because of its life blood – its the volunteer editors that drive the directory to do better.

So Happy 10th Birthday DMOZ and thank you to my fellow volunteers. Volunteers, who over the years have added millions of sites, thousands of categories, and hours upon hours of thankless dedication to this community and project. Also thanks to all of you for allowing me to participate and contribute, in some small part over the last 4 years and counting. Its been a roller coaster ride at times, but one that would be worth doing all over again.

I hear rumblings that some more improvements are on the horizon. Obviously I am not at liberty to mention what I have heard, but any improvements are going to be welcomed and long over due. Hopefully, we can look forward to an “Official” update on the DMOZ Blog some day soon. If for no other reason, to bump that last post down to second tier.

[updated] Updated slightly to reflect that today is the official birthday of the project. [/updated]