Rock

Great&WonderfulOz: logged into the twilight zone (This is the closest thing I could find to a forum bugs thread.) The forum has an annoying habit of sending my login to the twilight zone. That is, I become neither logged in nor logged out, and the only way I have found to re-enter reality is to exit and restart Mozilla. I think what happens is that my login times out, but something doesn't know it. Access to the forums becomes that of a non-logged-in guest. The "My Home" page will still show "Rock" when refreshed, but none of the links work properly. The "Login" link says "Login" (not "Logout"). When it is clicked, an error page comes up informing me to hit my browser [back] button. Mozilla is set to remember my login, and the first time the login page is visited, it shows "Rock" as login name and a set of "****" for the password. Depressing [Enter] or clicking the [Login] button properly logs me in. A few hours later, though, the Resource Zone becomes the Twilight Zone, and I must sacrifice an innocent Mozilla.

Re: Editors Hoarding Categories are ruining the OD Here's my 22 cents. I hope it helps you comprehend better how the ODP works. 1) Editors are not assigned. They volunteer for each category in which you see their name. 2) Categories can have multiple named editors. The presence of one editor's name by no means prevents other editors from volunteering for that category. The concept of "category hoarding" is nonsensical. 3) Every category has multiple editors. In addition to metas and editalls, each editor named in a category higher up has full edit permission "all the way down". Made-up example: jjones is listed editor of "Home/Kitchen", which contains the subcategories "Appliances" and "Recipes". Recipes itself has 7 subcategores, and a listed editor, thechef. jjones can edit in Kitchen itself, Kitchen/Appliances, and Kitchen/Recipes as well as its 7 subcats. thechef is limited to only editing in Kitchen/Recipes and its subcategories. 4) An editor can specifically request to be one of the named editors of a pre-existing category. She does this when the category has a particular interest to her, and she wants ODP users to know about it. 5) An editor can make new subcategories to a category where he has editing privelges. As part of subcat creation, he can choose to be named editor of the subcat. However, in this instance, he must actually justify why he wishes to be named. He will have full editing priveleges in the subcat if he names himself or not. 6) If a category already lists "many other editors", it is likely a very large category containing lots of subcategories. You are probably correct, a non-editor applying to edit this category will be turned down. The reason will not be, "there are already named editors". It will be, "the category is too large for a new editor". 7) If you are concerned about ODP's backlog, volunteer and help. If you get/got turned down, volunteer again, possible for a smaller or less spam-prone category. Each new editor helps reduce the load on mid-level and senior editors, and they can spend more time working specifically on heavily backlogged categories. Once he gains some experience, he can request to be given another category -- perhaps one with a backlog of submissions. -- Rich

What to do Gaetano, Personally I feel your site does have significant and useful content. One change you might undertake to reduce its "affiliate" perception is move the InsWeb ad to the bottom of each page. If you favor your informational content, perhaps the category editor would do so as well. Of course, I can't guarantee this change would get the site accepted. Nor can I guarantee that InsWeb would continue their relationship with you should you de-emphasize their ads. Should the latter be an actual concern, you may wish to review your "I'm not an affiliate!" stance.

words that sound like themselves?

Seems strange to me that "onomatopoeia" is one of the least onomatopoetic words in the English language. How about this: <pre><font class="small">code:</font><hr> noun: zoomwhizbuzz plural: zoomwhizbuzzes verb (reg): zoomwhizbuzz adjective: zoomwhizbuzzish adverb: zoomwhizbuzzly interjection: zoomwhizbuzzt! </pre><hr>

Please sign me up. I don't know if it matters, but I am a newbie ODP editor. Thanks.

Motsa, My first post simplified some of the submission details. Probably around August 2001 was when I first submitted The Visbile Policy to the Home ::: Life category. I may have used the site's formal address, which is http://home.att.net/~dbatitan/vp/ . AT&T Worldnet offers what they call "vanity URL's" -- in this case http://dbatitan.home.att.net/vp/ . They resolve to the same place, without any silly URL-forwarding. (I think Google realizes they are the same, because it does not index both forms. Google is inconsistent though; sometimes the vanity URL gets in the index, and sometimes the true URL. I have started using the vanity forms exclusively, although some of my ODP listings use the true form.) After several weeks with no response, I tried a different category, Business: Financial Services: Insurance: News and Information. The editor of that category was resistant to accept it, and I admit that my site is not a good fit. I sent him another e-mail asking how to get it in the Home ::: Life category, and his response was to go ahead and list it in his. After about two months, though, he removed it. (I'm not b*tching -- just giving the "long version".) So around January I resubmitted the site to the first category, and there was never a response. I didn't follow up until early September. Thinking that the entire site might overwhelm the Home ::: Life reviewer, only a single page was submitted, one which I was sure belonged in that category. About two weeks later, I saw that this category had updated, but without my page. I assumed the page had been rejected, and submitted the site to where it now is. It may well be that the entire site does fit in Actuarial Science. The "deep linked" page (the one you say is still in the queue) still belongs in the Life category, IMO. The page is subtitled "How does participating whole life insurance work?", and it was authored to be complete in itself.

I have authored several pages/sites and gotten them listed in ODP. My experience in dealing with the ODP and several editors has been a good one. So this post is not a complaint, but driven by curiousity. The one site I had problems getting listed is The Visible Policy. It thoroughly documents my life insurance policy and is informational/educational in nature. The natural category for it seemed to be Home: Personal Finance: Insurance: Life. During the last 16 months I tried to submit it there 3 times, about 5 months apart. Each time the submission was either ignored or rejected. (No editor, so I don't know which.) If it was rejected, I wonder if it was because the site was considered too "technical" for a Home category. Because I thought that might be the reason, I went the other way, and submitted to Business: Financial Services: Insurance: Actuarial Science. That category's editor liked my site and added it to his category the same day. I'm happy, except that to date it has not yet been indexed by ODP. (I assume this will happen "any day" -- it has been listed for 3 weeks.) I am not asking that The Visible Policy be recategorized. Once ODP searches will find it, it's fine where it is. BTW, Mike (Actuarial Science editor) suggested I apply for editorship of the Home .:. Life category, and I did so. No word yet (and wouldn't expect any in just a few days).