Been trying for two years

And before you ask about the voluntary nature of the DMOZ/editor relationship ...

We ARE volunteers. SO ... imagine that you are walking down a street lined with panhandlers and beggers. They are all in genuine need of whatever aid and assistance they can get and in a turly charitable spirit, you decide you want to help out.

Which begger are you going to help? THe one that grabs you by the lapels and demands your money or screeches in your face about how hungry he is or, heaven forbid, DEMANDS that you give him your hard-earned cash?

Or are you more likely to help the humble fellow that sits on the curb with his hand humbly extended to accept whatever you might offer?

The nature of volunteerism negates the validity of demands and demands negate the true spirit of volunteerism.

The Old Sarge said:

And before you ask about the voluntary nature of the DMOZ/editor relationship ...

We ARE volunteers. SO ... imagine that you are walking down a street lined with panhandlers and beggers. They are all in genuine need of whatever aid and assistance they can get and in a turly charitable spirit, you decide you want to help out.

Which begger are you going to help? THe one that grabs you by the lapels and demands your money or screeches in your face about how hungry he is or, heaven forbid, DEMANDS that you give him your hard-earned cash?

Or are you more likely to help the humble fellow that sits on the curb with his hand humbly extended to accept whatever you might offer?

The nature of volunteerism negates the validity of demands and demands negate the true spirit of volunteerism.

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Its ironic that you would mentioned something like your quote, as I am also a volunteer 5 days a week 6-8 hours a day working with Veterans. I am of the opinion if someone is need of help regardless of how they approach me, I should be inclined to help both, I do not label them as panhandlers or beggers etc, they are people in need. I would shudder in horror to think that someone who volunteers at a hospital emergency room tells someone with an emergency "I'll get to you when I can" thankfully I have not seen that. Maybe regulation of the internet is the only way to insure a level playing field. When interesting side note is, I saw nothing in your TOS or any guidelines concerning conflicts of interest, are there any? You may answer that question if you like, this is my last response to this thread. Thanks for the info and civil conversation.

I would shudder in horror to think that someone who volunteers at a hospital emergency room tells someone with an emergency "I'll get to you when I can"

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Granted, I have never heard of emergency rooms in hospitals using volunteers, but in any case the situation is very different, not only because hospitals cater to rather more important needs than we do. And with all due respect to The Old Sarge, the beggar example isn't exactly parallel either (though it is a bit closer). In hospitals, people come there as patients, which can be compared to "customers". Now, we also have "customers" at the ODP - but those are not the content providers (website owners/SEOs). Those people may or may not be in "need" but it is not any part of our responsibility to help them. There are other people out there who provide that service. Our customers are the web surfers, and towards them we do have a responsibility.

Obviously we should like to list all listable sites simultaneously and with equally good descriptions, for the sake of our customers - the people who are looking for information. Until somebody comes up with a useful time manipulator, that won't be possible, and all we can do is to work in the most efficient way we can to add listable sites to the directory and do all the other tasks that need to be done. Over the years, I believe we have arrived at a fairly good way of doing this.

I did not mean the terms begger and panhandler as degogatory.

Nonetheless, you cannot make people volunteer and once they do you cannot make them do any particular thing.

For the sake of argument, back to the hospital emergency room you bring up ...

If I'm the only person on duty, I certainly DO say, "I'll get to you when I can" because I'm already dealing with someone with a more serious emergency. In the profession, it's called triage. Look it up. It describes a process not so much different than editing for DMOZ.

But I suppose it depends a great deal upon how one looks at things.