Slashdot Mirror


After 19 Years, DMOZ Will Close, Announces AOL

Its volunteer-edited web directory formed the basis for early search offerings from Netscape, AOL, and Google. But 19 years later, there's some bad news. koavf writes: As posted on the DMOZ homepage, the Open Directory Project's web listing will go offline on March 14, 2017. Founded in 1998 as "Gnuhoo", the human-curated directory once powered Google and served as a model for Wikipedia.
A 1998 Slashdot editorial prompted Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation to complain about how "Gnu" was used in the site's name. "We renamed GnuHoo to NewHoo," a blog post later explained, "but then Yahoo objected to the 'Hoo' (and our red letters, exclamation point, and 'comical font')." After being acquired for Netscape's "Open Directory Project," their URL became directory.mozilla.org, which was shortened to DMOZ. Search Engine Land predicts the memory of the Open Directory Project will still be kept alive by the NOODP meta tag.

The site was so old that its hierarchical categories were originally based on the hierarchy of Usenet newsgroups. As it nears its expiration date, do any Slashdot readers have thoughts or memories to share about DMOZ?

1 of 60 comments (clear)

  1. Lexicon of the Negro Wisdom by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    What exactly do Negroes mean when they speak of "Gin Dick"?

    When, after drinking lots of gin, a man gets a rock-hard erection that won't go down no matter how much stimulation he gets; he can't finish the job "After drinking that fifth of Seagram's, I had gin dick all night. Even Takquana and her big booty couldn't work that thing off!"