Looks like there is talk about creating an Association of Web Directory Owners in the Digitalpoint forums. Is this a good idea? As if the Inquisition that controls life and death of directories in the Digitalpoint forums is not enough. I mean if you were to look carefully at what is happening in the directory subforum of Digitalpoint forums, you will realize that it’s the leaders who are in charge and they are the ones who have the last say. Not the community. And these lies in the hands of only a few people. They really control the web directory industry through monetary manipulation, peer pressure and of course media control and propaganda. I am a regular visitor to Digitalpoint forums and I realize that these group of people control the market by buying their supporters(who are usually web directory owners themselves). So do we really need such an association? Do we need more control from these people? And who will be the people in control? Will it be the same old group?

And will webmasters doing the submission be faced with the problem of monopolistic prices? If an association was to be formed, will prices be fixed? You know like OPEC? And with this price fixing, will we then see less innovation since there will be a lack of motivation for web directory owners? That could also spell the end of the web directory market. And how will big directories react to this? Will this association engage them or will they be seen as a competitor? Do you really want to go against big directories? But if such an association engages these big directories, will it be swallowed whole by these big monsters?

How about membership? Will it be something like a pay for membership thing? Or is there some sort of standard for web directories to be included? And who will setup these standards and who will be the judge? If membership to this association becomes very important for a directory owner to succeed, will it be prone to abuse by those with the authority? Is there anyway to regulate the behavior of those in charge? And will this association’s policies be transparent or will it be like those little rich boys club? Greed is the main driving force and I am sure all sort of abuse will happen. Just take a look at DMOZ and some of it’s editors.

Sure, having such an association can result in a better web directory scene. Perhaps we can see better web directories and directories with a higher editorial standard. And we will definitely see less of crappy directories out there. With a clear set of common rules and regulations, we can hopefully see better directories out there as these directories strive to follow these rules. Webmasters doing submission will have a more informed choice and a better understanding on which directories to choose when they do their submissions. It won’t be so messy as we are now. I mean the web directory market right now is really bad.

However we must always weight the benefits of creating such an association, especially when it is likely to be abused. Not only that there is no guarantee that it will benefit the directory owners, it may create more problems for us in the long run. I hate to see the association being used as a tool to further benefit some of the already powerful players in the web directory industry.