Catagories that are way behind....

Funny you should mention the Red Cross. My wife volunteers for them. Sometimes she goes a year without doing anything, sometimes there's a flurry of emergency activity. And yet they're still in business, and she's still on their rolls.

Who'd a thought it? (Only someone who'd actually participated in volunteer activity, perhaps?)

But the ODP isn't an emergency service. It's more like an internet project. And all the people that I've ever heard discuss their EXPERIENCE with such projects emphasize that it's worth a great deal of effort to remove artificial barriers.

The misapprehension that an editor can be "replaced" has already been mentioned. (You're still thinking slaves in the pit gang. No volunteer effort is like that.) The only "place" an editor has is the work they do. So long as there's more work to do, anyone can make a place for themselves, regardless of how many workers there already are.

I should also correct something that has been mentioned. The fact is, there is no requirement to do one edit every four months!

That's right. There is no such requirement.

An editor's userid times out if there is no activity in four months. But that is a server security issue, and has nothing to do with our expectations from editors. Metas have received very explicit instructions on this subject: editors who formerly were active (by the most liberal definition) are invited to return -- there is a simple reinstatement request, and unless there are really good reasons that we don't want an editor back, that request is to be granted.

So the ODP management is even further from your vision of the well-ordered society than you had supposed.

Now, I obviously don't have your experience -- less than 6 years at the ODP, less than 4 as a meta-editor; less than a hundred thousand ODP edits and less than 20000 pages of content contributed to other volunteer projects. But from that little experience, I have gotten the impression that many volunteer-built sites really value those sporadic contributions, far more highly than you think they ought. It's been about a year since I contributed to the CCEL: and you should already have written the webmaster to get me stricken from the rolls, since my potential as a future contributor is worth much less than the value of showing the power of the boss! -- clearly you are unreliable and worthless as a project manager. (And since you didn't know, you won't be telling him I've got almost 2000 pages more that will be ready real soon now.)

Project Gutenberg "suggests" proofreading a page a day. I've hardly done a thing since Wednesday. Clearly they should cut me off for being unreliable. The fact that I've spent my volunteer time scanning and OCRing 500 pages instead -- to fulfil a gap mentioned by another volunteer -- would be irrelevant even if they knew it. The only important thing is to wield the whip and terrorize the slaves into being more productive. You need to explain to tell them how they can get rid of volunteers before they slip up and get engrossed in their volunteer activites there.

But as for the ODP, you'll have to send your suggestions to Time Warner. The editors have no power to implement them; the meta-editors have specifically been forbidden to implement them.

wrathchild said:

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.

Click to expand...

That is very good to know.

However, I think most people would agree that being a good editor, or being good at anything for that matter, requires some degree of regular participation. The fact that an editor is only required to provide three edits over a 12 month period in order to stay, does not do anything to promote quality editing. I personally feel that it promotes mediocrity. What would happen if we all did the bare minimum just to "stay in." Although a huge, global statement, I feel that idea is part of the problem with our society.

I'm confident (or hopeful at least) that most of the editors actually "edit" more often than the bare minimum. However, suggesting that editors will suddenly flee in droves if they are required to perform 6 or 9 edits per year, perfectly validates my point. (Heaven forbid that we have any expectations thrust upon us.) If that is accurate, then that indicates a problem, to me anyway.

Oh, the ODP has expectations, major ones. We just define expectations that are required to meet our goals. A regular pattern of editing is NOT required, as several people have mentioned. It is NOT necessarily characteristic of even some of the most productive editors -- as has been mentioned. All feelings aside -- save them for group therapy, please -- simple logic dictates that an arbitrary restriction that eliminates productive editors is counterproductive. And the experience cited above further demonstrates that simple logic is simply correct.

But -- I'll say it again. This is a problem you MUST take to Time-Warner, because (1) editors can't control it, and (2) it has absolutely no negative impact on how we do our work, so it cannot rationally be our concern.

But the fundamental issue is, you don't have a problem with the ODP. You have a problem with your own irrationality. You want a service, and rather than going to any of the thousands of people that will provide it, you harangue the ODP for not providing it. We don't need to provide that service, because THOUSANDS OF OTHER PEOPLE ARE ALREADY DOING IT! We're working on a different mission, one that (even with what you regard as our insufficiently flogged slaves) we do better than anyone else.

Meanwhile, yes, we do discuss how to make editors continue editing. Good, experienced editors frequently mentor newer ones, and there is a lot of peer review of each other's editing going on all the time (since most of us think that doing something well makes it more fun). We are constantly talking about how to improve the editing process, how to improve the editor community, how to make sure editors in smaller languages or less-popular corners of the directory are not left unniticed, etc, etc. It is a concern for us, but it is not related to the number of unreviewed sites, and we are pretty certain that increasing the demands on editors' time would not address any of the concerns we see.

>What would happen if we all did the bare minimum just to "stay in." Although a huge, global statement, I feel that idea is part of the problem with our society.

Ah, a "big picture" man, I see. Perhaps you should focus on fixing society's problems, and leave the ODP for more detail-oriented people.

A few simple calculations, which anyone can do from publicly available numbers:

1000-3000 sites added daily. About 10000 active editors. 3000 spam sited deleted daily, and a few hundred changes -- say 5000-10000 edits. So the "average editor" does 60-120 edits in four months.

Of course, there are no average editors. Here's one editor who, rumor says, has cloned herself twice and knocks out 100 edits a day, in addition to a great deal of behind-the-scenes work. There's another editor who heats up the keyboard on semester breaks, but hardly touches it during the semester. Here's yet another, who's doing the bare minimum. Here's one that often does over 100 edits a day, but also has dropped out for several months, several times. Why? Who knows unless he tells us; who cares unless he wants us to; but welcome back every time! Procrustes would have his work cut out for him. And we aren't going to take it on: we've got more important things to do: sites to review, books to scan, classes to teach.

If you want to think about the big picture, think about this: a fundamental problem with the industrial society was that it encouraged the dehumanization of persons by treating them as identical "replaceable" cogs in a wheel, or gears forced to be a certain size to fit the machine.

The information society frees us from that particular diabolical myth, which is recurrent in much outside criticism of the ODP.

For instance, people talk about "replacing" an editor -- it can't be done. None of us are essential, but all of us are irreplaceable. Much that I do could be done better by someone else, but I bring a set of skills and a knowledge base that no other editor has. And every single editor can make that same statement!

There is that fetish about the "average" editor -- haven't met him yet, and don't want to. (I can't stand hearing him talk about his 2.3 children anyway.) And we only accept as editors people we think are above average. (We're not always right.)

And the "average" queue processed (in an order to be determined and imposed by those same outside critics) by golems under strict control (which control apparently ought to be exercised only by people who have demonstrated no knowledge or sympathy or the ODP mission -- sort of like Moscow agricultural commissars defining land use in the Caucasus.)

Auden had a bit to say about this particular diabolical myth: read http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/58/ .

The information age requires us to abandon that, and encourages everyone to add to the common store of knowledge. If we all knew exactly the same thing, it would be ... a pretty stupid world.

The existance of the ODP is in its own way a manifesto for the new age. And thinking like an automaton in a Soviet gulag won't work. Thinking like a Soviet commissar won't be tolerated. "The workers really DO control the means of production" -- and the commissars are running scared, as they ought to be.

This is a crucial point, and you won't begin to understand the ODP until you grasp this. We aren't staffing galley slaves, and we don't have wait till the whole fleet is fully manned. It's more like -- here's the ocean, bring your own surfboard and grab a wave. The "you have to attend at least x meetings of our surfing club to use our ocean" bit goes over like a lead surfboard. After all, there are other beaches.

The big picture is simple. We assume whoever's doing the work knows best how it ought to be done, any unsupported assertions to the contrary notwithstanding. So it's totally pointless to complain about the big picture. There is no big picture. You think part of the work can be done better? Show us, by doing it. Or be a peevish commissar in a post-communist world. (I understand some of the British colonial officers never quite came to grips with their post-colonial world either. But the world changed anyway.)

"The weather forecast tomorrow is more snow. Cycad-eaters will do well to store some forage against the possibility of continued frost. There is a possibility of greatly increased death rates among small-brained reptilian cycad-eaters. Small furry animals -- unlikeable, intractable, undomesticable -- may nevertheless escape extinction by learning to eat new foods and cooperate with swarm-mates."

If I volunteer one day a month at a 'soup kitchen', am I lazy because I don't volunteer for 2 days a month?

If an volunteer editor reviews one site a month for a category, are they lazy because they didn't review two?

Since I have been associated with the project, I've been honored to personally know two editors with very serious, life threatening illnesses. Others who have been around longer know of more.

I guess, if we followed the model that demands more edits per timeframe, we'd have had to cast them out in mid-chemo, because they were too sick to edit.

In doing so, we would have deprived ourselves of their inspirational companionship, and deprived them of the moral support they received from the global editing community.

There is much, much more to ODP that the number of edits. To think otherwise is to think that Habitat for Humanity is all about home construction.

Editing for ODP is like contributing to your public television station or any other charity. Some people send an annual $1000 gift. Someone else pledges $5 a month. Someone else sends $1 when they can afford it. All are valued as contributors. The guy who sends an occasional buck isn't told not to bother. He may not get the canvas bag with the station's logo on it but that's not why most of them send their money anyhow.

Now where did I put that ODP tote bag?

tome2 said:

Now where did I put that ODP tote bag?

Click to expand...

Probably the same place I hid the rubber duckie they beat lazy editors with.

I want a ODP tote bag.
So, I tried to be a volunteer editor but was recently rejected. I guess I'm average or below average. Where do I go from here? I have SOME time to help out but do not want to be discouraged by resubmitting an editors application 8 times. Any suggestions?

Never, NEVER let the rejection get you discouraged. I applied at least 4 times over a two year span before I was accepted. Even as editors, we have to apply for any new categories we want to edit in. The application process is a never ending deal - and neither are rejections.

The biggest mistake a potential editor makes is seeing the "Voluteer to edit this category" on a directory page and clicking on it. It may only look like there are a few (even under 50) sites in the category, but if you check further down the hieracy, there are really thousands under the category. For example: http://dmoz.org/Regional/North_America/Canada/Recreation_and_Sports/ only has maybe 30 at this level, but with the subcats below it (which if you were an editor at this level you could edit) there an lots and lots. It is very unlikely that a new editor would be approved for this category. Better to start out at: http://.dmoz.org/Regional/North_America/Canada/Recreation_and_Sports/Martial_Arts/ and work up from there.

The best thing is to start out small, a subcategory at the tail end of the trail with only a few sites. Find some new sites to add in your application and MAKE SURE they are not listed elsewhere in the directory.

The three major (IMHO) reasons for rejection are:

1. Category is too large for a novice editor - use the KISS theory - Keep It Somewhat Small. (or something like that)

2. Sites being added are either listed in the directory or are not relevant to the category applying for.

3. Read, read, read the ODP guidlines for submission, READ and understand what is being looked for in the url (not deeplinked, not affiliate linked, etc.), the title, and that the description is concise, accurate, and to the point. Also make sure the site that is being submitted does not have outdated information, dead links, under construction pages, and is UNIQUE in content. ODP does not want a lot of sites with the same old information. A few sites with unique information is much more important then a lot of sites with cookie cutter clutter. CHECK YOUR SPELLING AND GRAMMER!!!

Don't get discouraged. It is well worth the time (and sometimes a little frustration) to be an ODP editor.

Where do I go from here? I have SOME time to help out but do not want to be discouraged by resubmitting an editors application 8 times. Any suggestions?

Click to expand...

Pick a category, any category (preferably with a language that you speak ).

Go to the public side of the directory and start clicking links.

Does the link work? If not, report it here.

Does the link redirect to someplace else? If so, report it.

Has the URL been hijacked? If so, report it.

Does the content match (or even come close) to the description, or has the webmaster changed content? (Case in point, I looked at a site yesterday that belonged to a glass etching company, but the owner had switched to a picture framing business). If so, tell us.

Does the description contain any typos? If so, let us know.

If you are looking in Regional (please!!!!!) click through the site and find the business address. Are they still in the locality where they are listed? If not, let us know.

None of these require a long-term commitment, nor even a commitment of very much time. You will be helping us out, you will be helping fellow surfers and maybe, just maybe, you'll drive a favorable enough impression that you might be asked to apply to a specific category.

Look, for example at
this posting, or at the postings by this member, before becoming an editor

I look forward to seeing your contributions.

spectregunner said:

Pick a category, any category (preferably with a language that you speak ).
Go to the public side of the directory and start clicking links.

Click to expand...

OK, thanks. Didn't take long to find one to report today in a larger related cat I applied for.

Be careful, though, it can become quite addictive.

gboisseau said:

1. Category is too large for a novice editor - use the KISS theory - Keep It Somewhat Small. (or something like that)

Click to expand...

Thanks for the encouragements and input.

My father-in-law always said it different - Keep It Simple Stupid

Although his may be more appropriate, I like yours better.