A suggestion to improve the ODP

The ODP can only be as good as its team of editors. From the contributions that some editors make to these forums, one can surmise from the tone of voice, temperament, quality of writing and editing that the ODP has a good proportion of bad editors. Though the forums put the dirty linen in public, they can serve one positive purpose. By regularly reviewing editor's postings, Senior editors, assuming they are the ones responsible, could spot those who require advice, coaching or even training.

Someone jeered when I mentioned the power of perception in a previous thread. But that is a fact of life in the information age. Perception, especially a growing or widely held negative perception, can have an adverse impact, in the long run, on the image of an organization such as the ODP. Budding editors should be made aware of that, lest they believe that what they express in these forums, even if unofficial, will always be perceived as personal opinion. If in the forum of an English-language telephone directory one of its editors were to spell it as tellefon direktry, many people would begin to doubt the quality of its contents. Yet comparable mistakes occur in these forums, time and again.

What is this dirty linen you refer to?

oneeye (former editall/catmv)

one can surmise from the tone of voice, temperament, quality of writing and editing that the ODP has a good proportion of bad editors.

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Whether or not someone is a bad or good editor can only be judged by the quality of their editing not by anything else.

If you see bad editing, then please use the Quality control thread to report it. The editing guidelines have been improved over the years but there are still some 'old' entries that need bringing up to scratch.

What you will find here -- and anywhere else editors are involved in discussions -- are editors' personal perspectives on the ODP mission. The advantage of this forum is that there will be multiple editors, and idiosyncratic perspectives will be balanced by others' followup comments. As such, this forum is the "official voice of the editing community."

The official voice of the ODP would have to come from its sponsors or administration -- you can find that in the documentation at dmoz.org.

If I were you, I'd focus on shaping my own perceptions according to reality. If people do that, I wouldn't worry about their perception of the ODP. And if people DON'T do that, then there's no point in worrying about their perception at all -- self-delusion is a personal choice.

Anyone may be counted fortunate to have a public perception corresponds with their own merit and achievements. But, society being what it is, "the women who save cities still die unsung."

And Alex, even if you may not get the response you deserve here, you'll still get the respect you've earned.

A couple of experiments for anyone who wants their perceptions to correlate to reality:

(1) Find a dozen people who are whining about the slowness of site reviews. Get from them a list of all their websites. REVIEW those websites. Don't ask if they are "quality" sites, or if they are "useful" or if they "target someone". Ask: "if this site disappeared from the net, what of human knowledge or experience would have been lost to surfers?"

And ... I bet you'll get the same answer I do, every time I perform this experiment. And you'll realize that the ODP is astonishingly good -- far better than I have ever been by myself, and far better than you could be by yourself -- at figuring out how to find the most important sites quickly, and how to leave the "me-too" sites until it's clear which, if any, of them can survive on their own merits.

And then pick a topic represented in the ODP. See how many dozen screens deep in Google you have to go, to find comparably comprehensive information. (And Google is the best search engine humans have yet devised.)

Now, just to keep things in context, try to buy a copy of an obscure book: say, "Historical Geography of Asia Minor" or "Archaeology of Beekeeping." abebooks or amazon or ebay are ideal, Google is pretty poor, and the ODP isn't in the game.

Now try to find a local business. The ODP is fair-to-poor, Google search engine is pretty poor, and Google local shines.

What will the informed perception of a sane person be?

Well, the ODP is good for one thing, Google is good for another, and abebooks is good for yet another. The prudent person chooses the right tool for the right job. And -- if a prudent person finds a whole roomful of folk whining that their Vernier calipers don't grip the pipe joint fittings at all well, or their local Kroger's doesn't sell tires, or the ODP doesn't do something it was not designed to do -- then he won't worry about their "perceptions." He'll just mark that room, or that planet, down as the local insane asylum.

Now try to find a local business. The ODP is fair-to-poor, Google search engine is pretty poor, and Google local shines.

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That would depend on which country the business is in, though. The ODP is more than fair - sometimes really good - for finding local businesses in large swathes of the world, which Google don't concern themselves with. (I say this as a user, not an editor - though of course, being an editor, I know better than most average users how to use the ODP efficiently.)

joemartin, when your intent is to prove someone else is not playing by the rules, it is especially important to play by the rules.

Check out our forum policy, eh? And read up a bit on netiquette: we didn't think we needed to tell people to, for instance, start a new thread for a new subject, since that's such a basic aspect of courteous forum use.

{added: and when you make an accusation, try to make sure that at least one of the first two substantive facts in the post is TRUE. It will add a LOT to your credibility for the rest.}

{added: the ODP gets a lot of help from well-meaning surfers. That help takes many different forms -- finding websites, finding bad listings, suggesting new categories. But in order to help, it is absolutely necessary to have a reasonable understanding of what the ODP is doing, and what kind of sites it lists. People who do not have that understanding simply can't help, regardless of their motives.}

Eric-the-Bun said:

Whether or not someone is a bad or good editor can only be judged by the quality of their editing not by anything else.

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Anything else like the quality of their editing of their own writing?

I gather (from your original post as well as this last one) that you're disturbed by how well or how poorly people are writing here in this forum rather than by what they are writing. Am I interpreting you correctly? If so, why does that matter?

Anything else like the quality of their editing of their own writing?

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I fail to see your point.

When an editor creates a title and description for a site to be listed it has to follow a set of guidelines. Part of these guidelines defines the language that is to be used which may not be the natural language/dialect of the editor.

There are several editors on this forum whose native languages are not english but who edit in english categories. I would have thought credit would be due to them for the extra effort they put in whilst editing to achieve good descriptions than complaining about their standard of english elsewhere.

When I edit for the ODP, I have to remember to adopt a different spelling and punctuation than I am accustomed to. I see no reason to adopt that style in my normal postings.

The internet allows people from different cultures and backgrounds to combine and achieve something together that normally would not be possible. I have every respect for someone who is prepared to put in that extra effort to do so and am proud to be associated with them.

To demand a high standard of grammer and spelling for normal posting is unreasonable and elitist.

When people start discussing how the message is written rather than its content, then it is clear that the discussion has run its course and the thread should be locked.

Eric-the-Bun said:

When people start discussing how the message is written rather than its content, then it is clear that the discussion has run its course and the thread should be locked.

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In good writing and editing, how a message is written is usually indistinguishable from its content. In fact, experienced writers and editors will tell you that that is often the benchmark they use to tell the better books or directories from the rest.

Again, how someone writes here should not be mistaken for how they write as ODP editors.

Is it not a matter of standards?

Speaking only for myself -- I consider this forum conversational, while the directory, itself, is professional. Hence certain colloquialisms and ambiguities are allowable here, while not (intentionally, anyway) in descriptions in the directory.

Very good answer arubin. Thanks