" 3 year itch "

Dare I ask the question that everone would like to (but is afraid to) ask?

If it takes an editor upto 3 years to review a site submission, then should that person be an editor in the first place? Surely a more appropriate target would be 3 weeks ? Isn't 3 weeks adequate time for a keen editor to complete all lhis editing activities?

Or am I being naive?

Not at all, let's say I've taken three years to review a site - from your view I should be fired. Let's think about that.

The site was waiting in a group of categories that I only started reviewing a year ago. When I started there were 2000 sites waiting to be reviewed, now there are 800 left. I don't review sites in order of submission, so I only got around to reviewing it today. No one else is interested in reviewing those categories - so if I was not the editor there then no sites would be reviewed there at all.

Since that is not the only area I work in then during the last year, I've reviewed probably another 8,000 sites in total.

But maybe I'm just too lazy for you....

You are putting a very distorted priority on the importance of the amount of time a site waiting for review. There is absolutely no more importance to reviewing a site that was submitted three years ago, to one that is submitted today.

(1) Apparently not, you're just asking the question everyone else does ask.
(2) Yes, because reviewing site submissions is not the editor's job, nor is it in any way related to the standard by which his accomplishments are measured.
(3) No, any target at all would be extremely inappropriate: harmful to the directory, and unattainable in any case.
(4) Duh! No! I've been an editor for over five years now, and I haven't completed all my editing activity yet.
(5) I think this goes beyond naive into wilful blindness -- beyond tunnel vision into gazing at the world through a coffee stirrer.

Think of "site submittals" as one way of helping the ODP editors. Think of them as a not particularly effective way, but not as totally useless. Think of them as not at all a way of compelling the ODP editor to act -- as totally useless and ineffective.

Think of that as a good thing.

Now...how many of your questions would make sense?

bobrat said:

When I started there were 2000 sites waiting to be reviewed ...

Click to expand...

With respect, should any one individual really be responsible for 2000 sites? If your workload is so heavy shouldn't it be apportioned out between, say, 10 or more editors?

The system is clearly broke, so why not fix it?

Actually, an editor is responsible for only one site: http://dmoz.org/.

We shouldn't think of those 2000 submissions as a workload. What they are is a pile of suggestions submitted by people who think the sites referred to should be listed. Ideally, they would come from users who ran across a page of interest while surfing and thought others would like to know of its relevance to a category. In practice, most of the suggestions seem to come instead from webmasters wanting their own sites listed. Still, we sometimes learn of listable sites from these suggestions, so many of us do look at them.

We are not a service for webmasters to get listings, our purpose is to list comprehensive sites for the end user to view on each topic. It's nice that people want to suggest their sites but that's all it is. The perception that the volunteer editor has a job to do in reviewing suggestions within a certain time frame is wrong. That just isn't the goal, nor will it ever be the goal.

There are lots of services where webmasters can pay to have a site listed, just look at it as a bonus if one is listed in the ODP. Listings are free, and there is the knowledge that an editor actually looked at a site and found value in it. My advice is for people to submit their site as a suggestion but then not worry about it after that. This is in part why we stopped status checks here, our purpose is for the end user as opposed to a service for the webmaster.

While I understand why you think it's broken, you aren't looking at it from our point of view.

With respect, should any one individual really be responsible for 2000 sites

Click to expand...

As editors prove their editing ability, they tend to request and are granted more and larger categories. The directory would not be best served by limiting editors who've demonstrated their ability to edit well to a small area simply because suggested sites are piling up. The key piece of information you need to understand is that the pile of suggested sites are not the priority of editors. Building and improving the directory is, whether they find sites to add on billboards, in newpapers, or in the pile of suggested sites. If an editor adds 20 sites this week, it doesn't matter to us where he found those 20 sites or indeed where he added them (as long as they were added to the right place). The fact that the category where you've suggested your site is not one of the areas where editors have chosen to add sites doesn't mean the system is broken though, again, I understand why it seems to be from your POV.

If your workload is so heavy shouldn't it be apportioned out between, say, 10 or more editors?

Click to expand...

Again, the suggested site pile isn't our priority so it doesn't count in our "workload". Since editors will never be forced to work in areas that don't interest them, there will always be some categories that don't get the same loving attention as others because the interest isn't there. And before you ask, no, the answer isn't to accept more new editors. For one thing, we have no cap on accepting new editors as it is so, short of lowering our expectations (which isn't going to happen), we can't accept more editors than we do.

There is no concept of workload.

I work when I feel like, it may also be limited by other events, like working at a job, taking vacations. Sometimes, I've decide to edit all day, and once worked about 12 hours straight - because I wanted to. On a typical day, I may do about 10 to 50 editing events, that might be a review of a site, a move, a delete or other things.

Right now I've other things I have to take care of and am hardly doing anything.

Also remember that hundreds of of others can edit any of the categories I work in. As an example, one small group of categories, I tned to keep very up to date, and a new site there will get reviewed within a day. I got delayed one day, and another editor who is higher up in the hierarchy and I guess also monitors it, beat me to it. It's a self levelling process.

No editor owns a category.

You're still assuming that reviewing submittals is the editors' job. But it isn't.

So the system is working fine. It's just working at something other than what you're interested in. Which is fine-you're working at something other than what I'M interested in: but the internet is big enough for us all.

I don't like terms like workload or job when applied to DMOZ editing. For editors it is a pasttime/hobby. DMOZ is not a business or organisation it is a project. There are obviously goals, aims, directions but there are no targets or end dates - the project just grows at whatever pace the community contributes with no pressure on anyone to perform to any level whatsoever, it is completely up to the individual what they do, where they do it, how much they do when they are there. If you collect stamps and belong to a stamp collectors club you wouldn't expect there to be any targets on how many stamps each member must add to their collection each period. We collect web sites, same rules (or lack thereof) apply.

like R-Z has stopped taking status checks .......... stop taking question marks on editors integrity / overload / no interest



Lets all support the good cause DMOZ