DmozSucks.org

[Joe]

It seems that the horror stories about Dmoz and its editors are never ending.
The latest accusation leveled against Dmoz is EXTORTION. Even though I've had (and still have) a long list of grievances against Dmoz and its editors, I've never thought it would sink to this level.

Shoemoney (A very popular blogger) has published details of an editor who contacted him and demanded a $5,000.00 "ransom" or his link at Dmoz will be removed, and of course like most people, Shoemoney didn't think much of it or probably found it amusing. But lo and behold, this Dmoz editor actually delivered on his promise and zapped the listing.

This is horrific, not only because of what happened, but also because of where it happened. If you still think Dmoz is an open, honest, and fair directory, then nothing else could ever convince you otherwise.

Source:
http://www.shoemoney.com/2007/08/26/dmoz-extortion/

[Joe]

The saga of the above extortion is yet to end. Dmoz is sinking lower than they ever sank, and now they are the MAFIA of the Internet. They should be looked at with nothing but contempt.

Here is a new post regarding the ShoeMoney affair/scandal mentioned above. A wonderful Dmoz editor by the name of (Joost de Valk) heard of the incident and decided to investigate why the web site was removed. The poor guy didn't know what hit him. As soon as he raised the question, the Mafia bosses at Dmoz disabled his account. here is his post, copied for historical record keeping.

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The DMOZ mob strikes again...

This weekend I was reading about Shoemoney being extorted by a DMOZ editor. I thought: heck, I'm a DMOZ editor, I don't want to be associated with stuff like that, let's see if I can do anything to help. So I posted something like that in the commentthread to the above post, and I added a note to Shoemoney's URL in DMOZ asking why the URL was removed.

Now pay attention: within 36 hours after doing that, my account was disabled!

I'd put quite some work into that account; I was editing 9 categories at the time my account was disabled. I did NOT put all that hard work into it for some meta to come along and ban me on sight when he sees something he doesn't like, without sending ANY email or other notification.

If AOL is serious about wanting to improve DMOZ, this would be a good place to start. For now, I'll join the crowd of people saying Google should stop using DMOZ. Of course there are editors who do a good job, but these mob like practices make it impossible to work with and for.

Login removed screenshot
Screenshot of my DMOZ profile

Update: Having seen some of the discussion in the DMOZ forums, it looks like I was banned because I had BOOKMARKED shoemoney.com, with the simple reason of wanting to add a note to it... My god.
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Please visit his post to see the screen shots mentioned above.
Source: http://www.joostdevalk.nl/the-dmoz-mob-strikes-again/