Catagories that are way behind....

Is there a way to check how long it has been since a catagory has been updated by an editor, or to check when the last time was that they logged in?

I have searched for a particular editor, but can't find them in the member list. Is it possible they are not a member of the forum?

My point, is that if I am going to wait a year to be included because the editor has not logged in, I would like to know, so I won't worry about it.

Help ease my mind please.....

Indeed, check the footer of any category page to see when it was last generated. We're not gonna give status reports on editor log-ins however.

Thanks for the response....

I see paulknight has taken care of part of your question.

As far as the rest goes:
There are many editors that do not frequent this forum, on the other hand there are a great many who do. It really is not important however if a specific editor is on the forum or not because any editor of a higher category can check status for you in the Submission Status Forum. As far as

if I am going to wait a year to be included because the editor has not logged in, I would like to know, so I won't worry about it.

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Do not worry about it. Any editor with permissions for that category or higher categories can review it. Someone will get to it, but there is no way to predict how long that it will take however. Be patient, then read the Guidelines to request a status of the submission and someone can help you.

I have searched for a particular editor, but can't find them in the member list. Is it possible they are not a member of the forum?

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Supposing that you are talking about Resource-Zone: Extremely possible. Only a small fraction of the ODP editors are members of this forum.

if I am going to wait a year to be included because the editor has not logged in, I would like to know

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In any given category, the people who can edit there are
1) the editor (if any) who is named at the bottom of the category page
2) the editors named for any category higher up in the category tree
3) a couple of hundred editall and meta editors, who have editing rights in the entire directory.

Nobody can know where any of these people is going to edit tomorrow, or next week. It might be that the named editor has been editing every day in that particular category, but has just been granted additional categories and is editing there instead. Or maybe nobody has edited in a category for six months but next week somebody will drop by and say "My, this is a mess - I'd better clean this up", and work there for three weeks.

Not worrying about it is excellent advice; once you have suggested your site to DMOZ and been told it is waiting for review it's probably more productive to forget it since you can't hurry the process up anyway.

I see paulknight has taken care of part of your question.

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Sorry, I do tend to keep my responses brief.

No problem. You probably would have typed faster than I did anyway. Besides Nea clearly explained it better than me anyway.

It would be inconceivably bad for you to avoid submitting a site to a category based on that kind of information.

Assuming I could tell you without hesitation, and fully guaranteed that a category had no editing done in it for tha last two years. You would of course [based on your post] not submit your site.

But tomorrow, an editor starts editing there, and starts dealing with the two year old pileup of sites. Not only that, he does not always review sites in date order. You missed yout chance to get your site listed. Too bad.

This is not a hypothetical situation, it's something I'm doing right now in a category. In the same day, I might review and publish sites from 2002, and submiited this week.

TonyG5003 said:

My point, is that if I am going to wait a year to be included because the editor has not logged in, I would like to know, so I won't worry about it.

Help ease my mind please.....

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I don't think Tony said he wasn't going to Suggest the Site. He's simply not going to worry about it. Right? That's always a good idea. Don't worry. Be happy.

tome2 said:

I don't think Tony said he wasn't going to Suggest the Site. He's simply not going to worry about it. Right? That's always a good idea. Don't worry. Be happy.

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That's correct. I had no intention of never submitting. It has been about 6 weeks since I submitted. I did check the last time this person's catagories were updated, and it appears they take an active role, so that helped.

Although I didn't mention it in this thread, I still feel however, that DMOZ should take a more active role in determining what is, and is not appropriate for how often an editor actually tends to their catagories; there should be a clear expectation for anyone who volunteers. Not that it is the case for me (yet), but I feel it is entirely unfair to have well deserving and honest people wait forever, simply because someone is not doing what they signed up to do. If you can't commit to doing the work, then let someone else in to handle it. I think this is quite reasonable.

Are there currently any "policies" in place for replacing editors who have not signed in over a certain time period?

TonyG5003 said:

Although I didn't mention it in this thread, I still feel however, that DMOZ should take a more active role in determining what is, and is not appropriate for how often an editor actually tends to their catagories; there should be a clear expectation for anyone who volunteers. Not that it is the case for me (yet), but I feel it is entirely unfair to have well deserving and honest people wait forever, simply because someone is not doing what they signed up to do. If you can't commit to doing the work, then let someone else in to handle it. I think this is quite reasonable.

Are there currently any "policies" in place for replacing editors who have not signed in over a certain time period?

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Ahh, some of the big misunderstandings about ODP.
- all editors are volunteers, and as so can not be told how much work they should do
- when an editor hasn't done any editong in 4 months (s)he is deactivated until (s)he decides to join again
- if a category already has an editor listed it is still posisble for new editors to apply for this category
- even if an editor is very active in a category this doenst't mean any of the suggested sites will be processed, reviewing suggestions is only a small part of our 'work'
- when an editor signes up there is no contract so it is impossible that "someone is not doing what they signed up to do"

dogbows][COLOR=Teal][B]Yes said:

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Wow... that is much worse than I thought it would be. I think one edit every 2 weeks is more appropriate. At least one per month should be the minimum.

The Guide to Becoming an Editor explains in general terms exactly what is required of a volunteer wishing to help out. I encourage everyone to read it thoroughly, even those not wishing to become an editor. It gives a little insight into what we do.

Just because a specific editor has not edited in one particular category does not mean that they have not been editing somewhere. The best editors have a wide range of categories to work on, so just because they have not edited in one category for a while doesn't mean they haven't been busy somewhere else.

Hope that helps some.

TonyG5003 said:

Wow... that is much worse than I thought it would be. I think one edit every 2 weeks is more appropriate. At least one per month should be the minimum.

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The majority of editors are working several times a week. However, you have to realize that we have lives outside of editing as well. Full-time or part-time jobs, family/children to be with and take care of, illnesses, vacations and other hobbies that also take up our free time. We volunteer to edit, because we are willing to donate a part of our free time (not all-just part) to try and make the internet better. Most of us would not have volunteered if we didn't think we could at least set aside a good bit of our time to do the job at hand. Some of those editors that are only able to log in every couple of months are very good editors who just do not have the extra time (right now-could have changed or might still change) to do anymore at this time. We are not going to prevent someone who is good from volunteering to help no matter how much time they have to give.

At least one per month should be the minimum.

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But people don't always work that way. People don't ususally come in and just do one edit.

They may not check in for 2 months and then do a dozen. That would be an average of one a month for a year, but they still have to do another edit within 4 months or they'll time out.

Also not all "editing" counts. I can reject a dozen sites from the unreviewed queue and it doesn't count. Although we get a lot of spam, dealing with it doean't count as doing an edit. When we say one edit in 4 months, minimum we are looking at adding a site, correcting a listing, adding a link, or a few other concrete things.

Answering questions here and dealing with spam are just two of the things that don't count as editing, but do take our time.

Plus, we do appreciate the efforts of those who have limited time to offer the project. Every little bit helps. And some of us start out doing a dozen edits every 2 or three months and then get into it and start doing more.

pvgool said:

Ahh, some of the big misunderstandings about ODP.
- all editors are volunteers, and as so can not be told how much work they should do
- when an editor signes up there is no contract so it is impossible that "someone is not doing what they signed up to do"

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Herein lies the problem.....

Imagine where the Red Cross would be if they operated in the same fashion with their volunteers. If they couldn't depend on the volunteers to some degree, they would be in shambles.

There doesn't need to be a contract... just courtesy. I personally would never volunteer if I thought I could not meet expectations. I think there is a bit of a contradiction here - it appears to be quite a challenge to even become an editor - but once you are in.. you can come and go as you please. That does not make sense.

Most volunteer organizations that I'm aware of do have guidelines in place regarding the minimum that they are expected to participate. I think one edit in four months is simply ridiculous. Now I know why there are so many catagories that have obsolete links.

I think these are perfectly valid points.

Yeah, but you're under the mistaken impression that an "idle" editor is somehow preventing other work from being done. Any of a couple of hundred editors can edit in any part of the directory. No editor "owns" a category; an editor listed on a category does not prevent other editors from being listed there. So, removing an editor doesn't "make room" for someone else, since they weren't taking up space.

Say you have an editor that makes 1 quality edit a month. That's one more edit that month--one more incremental improvement to the directory--that we wouldn't have gotten otherwise. Now say you tighten the requirements to be 1 edit per week. This editor, and other like him/her, are unable or unwilling to make that commitment and are dropped. Now you don't get those 12 good edits a year...from every editor dropped. And for what? He/she wasn't holding a more "ambitious" editor back. He/She wasn't taking up space while we have a long queue of qualified editors waiting for an opening. You've just thrown away a good editor for no reason.

We always need good editors. Always. This project is huge. We need many more people than we have. However, the people that are declined an editor position aren't turned away because the fire marshal says we can have only so many people in the building in one time, but because the reviewing meta didn't feel their application showed enough promise. Better for us to run perpetually understaffed than to lower our standards and let in poor editors who will simply make more work for the rest of us.

What is "lacking" in those obsolete categories is someone with a passion for the topic (and decent editor skills). Are you one of those people?

This project is built on the good graces of its volunteers. Start saying "you must make X edits per week to stay active" and "you must edit in this category now" and editors will be resigning in droves. I can think of no more efficient way of killing the ODP.

From my point of view comparing ODP to the Red Cross, is dubious at best, and is not fair to ODP. That organization that is supposedly so well run, managed in Canada, to issued tainted blood and ruin peoples lives. So its not a role model that I feel we should follow. And they are in a shambles.

I think there is a bit of a contradiction here - it appears to be quite a challenge to even become an editor - but once you are in.. you can come and go as you please. That does not make sense.

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Not at all. There are plenty of cases of editors being shown the door.

When you apply to be an editor, the only thing the reviewer has to go on is your application. You have no edit history. As such, the metas will often accept a borderline application if they think the person can become a good editor with some guidance and practice.

Once an editor, you can apply for permissions to edit new categories. However, now the reviewer of your application can see the entire history of your work. If your work isn't up-to-snuff, your request will be declined. (Every editor posting on these forums probably has at least one newperm rejection.) In egregious cases you'll be bounced out, but usually you're given an opportunity to improve and can then re-apply. (Other factors come into play, like experience in relation to the size of the category.) Nobody can "come and go as [they] please" since every request for more permissions requires review of past work. Existing editors are held to a higher standard than new applicants because they are expected to understand the guidelines and work to improve on any shortcomings. Those that don't, at best, simply don't get new editing permissions. The ones who refuse to improve and continue to edit poorly are removed.