Amount of time needed to edit

Hi,

I'm thinking about volunteering to edit a category/subcategory. If I'm going to do this however, I'd like to make sure that I can give the task the time it deserves. As editor of a subsection, say 20-30 sites without further sub-categories,is it possible to give a rough approximation of the amount of hours you would need to put aside for editing in a week?

thanks,

Mike

It's an excellent question, but one that will probably get five different answers if you ask five different editors

In the beginning, as you are wading through the editor guidelines, coming to terms with the editing interface etc, I'd say that you need to spend at least a couple of hours a week. If you spend less time you are likely to have to start over again the next time trying to remember how things work - of course, this is what applied to me and your mileage may vary wildly!

Once you know how to edit, it will depend on the category. You might have to start by editing the existing listings which could take between one and thirty minutes per listing. In many cases you probably won't have to do anything to the listings, though. If you get many submissions to your web site you'll probably want to log in at least once a week merely to check those; processing them can take five minutes or twenty - longer, maybe, if you need to track redirect URLs and other spammy things. Weeding out obvious spam on the other hand takes 20 seconds

Probably the most important thing you'll want to do is to find new web sites to add - again, this depends on the category, but if it is a subject you're interested in you'll porbably know resources that aren't listed, and one resource tends to lead to another... Writing descriptions for these takes a long time initially, but there's a lot of help to be had if you want it. We have internal discussion fora, and I doubt if anybody keeps up with them all but it's useful to read those that are relevant to your categories.

So what does this mean? Well, there are many editors who log in quite rarely and make wonderful contributions when they do. There are others who edit every day. I would say that if you think you'll be able to give the project half an hour a couple of times a week you should go for it. If you are like me you'll find yourself spending much more time than that for the sheer fun of it

Thanks nea,

An excellent and comprehensive response too! It doesn't sound like a whole lot of work, and at least would be something I could keep control over (do I hear the sound of editors sniggering?). I might well take the plunge. I'll have a look through the listings and see if I know about any subject well enough to apply. Always wanted to 'put something back' into the industry, so this is my chance!

regards,

Mike

It is as much work (play! ) as you want it to be.

I started with a 48 site category. I probably had 3 or 4 editing sessions lasting around 2 hours each the first week. I spent that time getting the hang of the editing interface, re-reviewing listed sites and starting to clear out the unreviewed. I probably spent 8 or 10 hours the second week hunting new sites. That was about when I realized how extensive the editing community was and how much knowledge was in the forums. The next couple of weeks I pretty much stopped editing and read a lot of the forums - lunchtimes just flew by!

After that I edited around 5 hours a week, adding sites I'd found. It took me 10-30 minutes to review them, mostly because they we interesting to me and I kept getting distracted. After 6 months I had the category to 250 sites and decided to get a 2nd category editing my hometown. That was when the editing bug bit and I really started spending time editing.

Been addicted ever since.

As far as time commitment goes, I would say you need to plan to spend 4 or 5 editing sessions of 1 to 3 hours each in order to get started and really start digging into the meat of what editing is all about. Exactly what you do and how many sites you edit will depend a lot on the category you edit in.

Just a different perspective.

<added>
I'm sure a lot of folk reading are thinking - 10 hours a week, you've got to be kidding! Well, I don't watch TV anymore in the evenings - that's an easy 2 hours a night I spend glued to my monitor instead of glued to the boob tube. Lunchtime provides 5 good hours of editing opportunity and a mental break. And often I squeeze in an afternoon session on a weekend day (yeah naptime!) Now if only I could edit while I'm carpooling to work ...

But don't get me wrong - if you only want to spend 1 or 2 hours every couple of months, that is wonderful too. Every little bit counts!

That's the nice thing about the ODP. It's a very flexible commitment. (-: Some weeks I've just logged in once to make sure there wasn't anything that needed my immediate attention. Other weeks I've put in a couple hours a day. How much time I have to offer depends what my home and work schedules and other things going on in my life are like at any given time. And that seems to be just fine with all involved. (-: