New MozillaZine Open DirectoryMonday June 5th, 2000The Open Directory Project [formerly NewHoo] is the largest site directory on the Internet. It has more listings than Yahoo, it is maintained by volunteer editors, and beyond that, the listings are free for reuse. Lycos, Hotbot, and many smaller sites use the Open Directory listings in their own endeavors. Many people have requested a "links" area on mozillaZine, but I was hesitant to create one when dmoz.org already had such a good Mozilla links directory. However, kerz found a solution and set up on mozillaZine a very cool proxy to the Mozilla area of the Open Directory. It's now available by clicking Open Directory in the navbar. The directory is pulled in real-time from dmoz.org, so you'll always get the most recent updates and additions. A search field is also provided, with the search results also pulled directly from dmoz.org. You can search the Mozilla area, or the entire Open Directory directly from MozillaZine. You can also submit your own sites to the directory. Just visit the directory category that you feel your link belongs in, and click on the "Submit a Site" link at the bottom of the page. You can find out more about the software we use at the ODP++ website. It's good to see the Open Directory Project getting used like this. This has been a goal of the project from early on. They originally called the directory GnuHoo.com to reflect this idea of open content. Later it changed to NewHoo.com and then, because of complaints from You-know-hoo they renamed it. By the way, dmoz.org is an abbreviation for directory.mozilla.org. It's part of the mozilla organization! Oh, yeah, all these names still resolve correctly. :-) I don't know whether ODP++ supports it, but it'd be nice to add the editor names and contact information. It's nice to be able to send feedback directly to the great people volunteering as editors for DMoz. I've found them very responsive and helpful. Plus, it's nice to credit them for the hard work they've done. DMoz editor tim HUMANS do it better! The Open Directory Project <http://dmoz.org> Hmm... I didn't even notice that the editor list was missing, and I don't know why it doesn't show up automatically. I'll look into it; I agree that it should be included, if possible. . Wow! Thanks for the quick response with adding the editor credits. However, it appears that the links on the editor names are broken. They should be to dmoz.org/profiles/EDITORNAME.html I know I'v ebeen saying that a lot lately but it is cool. I wonder if more websites will start do things like that. I'm considering it myself, heh, I'm a confirmist at times. But right now I'm too busy trying to restructure my site in PHP to ease up maintenance, updates, and possible future redesigns. <:3)~~ |
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