Dmoz – The Open Directory Project • Hacker News Board

Re: Dmoz – The Open Directory Project

#21

Post by dredmorbius » Wed, Jul 01, 2015, 3:22 AM UTC

chaostheory wrote: post #18

gpvos wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the first open content projects. A precursor of Wikipedia in a way. I'm surprised it still exists. It was fairly popular, but mostly because there weren't any really better directories, and Google wasn't all-encompassing yet.

It's not really a a precursor to Wikipedia. It's just a more open Yahoo; the old version of Yahoo before it became a media site.

It's Wikipediaesque in that it's a collaboratively produced redference. No it doesn't have the content element of Wikipedia, but the idea that random netizens could take on Yahoo was novel.

Re: Dmoz – The Open Directory Project

#22

Post by chaostheory » Wed, Jul 01, 2015, 5:32 AM UTC

dredmorbius wrote: post #21

chaostheory wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not really a a precursor to Wikipedia. It's just a more open Yahoo; the old version of Yahoo before it became a media site.

It's Wikipediaesque in that it's a collaboratively produced redference. No it doesn't have the content element of Wikipedia, but the idea that random netizens could take on Yahoo was novel.

It's still a bad argument. Just because it's collaborative, it doesn't make it Wikipediaesque since it's obviously just a directory and not a wiki. It's like calling a bicycle, automotive; just because it has wheels and can move. Moreover (I don't know if this has changed but) back then, you'd have to apply and be approved to actually edit content on dmoz vs just being able to register and being able to edit content on wikipedia.

Re: Dmoz – The Open Directory Project

#23

Post by gpvos » Wed, Jul 01, 2015, 4:26 PM UTC

chaostheory wrote: post #22

dredmorbius wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's Wikipediaesque in that it's a collaboratively produced redference. No it doesn't have the content element of Wikipedia, but the idea that random netizens could take on Yahoo was novel.

It's still a bad argument. Just because it's collaborative, it doesn't make it Wikipediaesque since it's obviously just a directory and not a wiki. It's like calling a bicycle, automotive; just because it has wheels and can move. Moreover (I don't know if this has changed but) back then, you'd have to apply and be approved to actually edit content on dmoz vs just being able to register and being able to edit content…

I edited my comment from "A precursor of Wikipedia" to "A precursor of Wikipedia in a way" pretty quickly after I posted it, but maybe you reacted to the first version? I wanted to refer to the fact that it's open content (see first sentence) and collaborative, not that the content itself is similar.

You do have a point about the having to be approved to be able to edit. It wasn't very hard to get approval though.

Re: Dmoz – The Open Directory Project

#24

Post by peter_l_downs » Wed, Jul 01, 2015, 9:24 PM UTC

cloud36 wrote: post #20

cloud36 wrote: post #2

And the purpose of this is...

Pretty much how you navigated the web before search engines. Also, something all SEO'ers tried to get their sites into as search engines used to use this as seed site for their crawling process. But, yeah, I don't know why anybody would post it. Maybe they were feeling nostalgic.

I submitted this because, although it might be hard to believe, I'm young enough that I hadn't heard of it, and only found it during a random link deep dive. It felt like some eldritch internet horror that the people on HN might know about and be able to explain!