Category prejudice and cross-posting?

Dear DMOZ folks --

First, thanks for volunteering your time for this resource... And thanks for reading this posting.

I have a question about cross-posting sites in categories.

I requested the inclusion of my web literary journal in "Arts: Literature: Journals" as it's a long-running litmag with a general audience even though it features queer fiction. (Our credentials and history as a literary journal with an audience that includes non-queer literary readers is documented after my signature.) But it's limited to a listing in "Arts: Literature: Cultural: Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual: Online Writing".

Now, I can swallow my pride and accept being excluded from "Arts: Literature: Journals". But a new queer litmag -- I can name it, but I am not supposed to name other sites as per the guidelines -- is posted in both categories. So I thought I should contact the "Arts: Literature: Journals" editor and ask to be cross-posted as well.

The editor for "Arts: Literature: Journals" has been unresponsive. I've submitted the link through the link-add feature, and written to the editor directly to inquire about the situation. But it's been months and nothing has happened.

I understand you have a preference for not posting a site in more than one category. But the policy is not enforced consistently. Why would my literary website be relegated to a gay-readers-only listing, but another site sees cross-posting in the general lit mag listing?

I wanted to contact DMOZ privately about this situation, but I couldn't find contact info. I apologize if a public airing of my complaint comes off as inappropriate, but I have no other means of making myself heard.

I appreciate any responses to my query.

Cheers,
Aldo Alvarez
Executive Editor and Publisher
Blithe House Quarterly

***

"Internet-based fiction journals have become a significant force in publishing, especially for serious short fiction. In Web-only lit journals such as Blithe House Quarterly, the short-story form is alive and clicking."
-- Baltimore City Paper

Now in its seventh year of online publication, Blithe House Quarterly features new short stories by lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) authors -- both emerging and established. With an average of over 24,000 readers per issue, Blithe House Quarterly is the most widely read of LGBT literary periodicals. OUT Magazine has called us "the central publishing arm of new queer fiction." A recipient of Encyclopaedia Britannica's Internet Guide Award, we are also a featured site on internet hubs.

Suite101.com writes: "Blithe House Quarterly is an electronic magazine up to the standards of print." In fact, our literary standards our higher than those of many print media. We publish LGBT fiction not as a genre or ghetto, but as a literature that can stand by any other in its quality and innovation.

***

Speaking as someone with admittedly limited experience in Arts/Literature ... I don't see any problem with listing it in both the GLB category and a more general one. The purpose of having a directory with specialized categories isn't to create "ghettos" but to help somebody who's specifically looking for GLB literature or female musicians or an Italian restaurant in his hometown.

I would suggest that Arts: Online Writing: Fiction: Short Stories might be more appropriate, given your purpose (Internet-based short fiction).

Far as I can tell, no one's reviewed your last submission, and there's not currently an Arts/Literature/Journals editor, which leads me to believe that the editor either resigned the category or timed out due to lack of activity.

- hedgey42
http://dmoz.org/profiles/hedgey42.html

Thanks for responding <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" />

To place some peer-reviewed journals with an editorial mandate under "Online Writing" and some under "Journals" doesn't quite make sense to me at the moment. Most of the jounals listed under "Journals" are web-only, so, why aren't they under "Online Writing"? What is the actual difference?

I wish I could volunteer to sort this out for you. But I have no time. I'd also have an excess of conflict of interest, as I would place all literary journals under "Arts : Literature : Journals", and only place self-published writing (like fiction or autobiographical ramblings in amateur homepages) under "Arts: Online Writing".

Any website listed under Arts/Literature should also be published in print, or should be about writing published in print (with a few exceptions). If the writing exists online only, it goes to Arts/Online_Writing.

The Arts/Literature/Journals category does have a few exceptions in fully online journals that are published by English departments of a university or other educational institution.

A recent editor did list a couple of sites that did not belong there, but I have just gone through the category and removed those.

Thanks, Seeker. Well done <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" />

I'll add my site to "Online Writing" in a moment.

Cheers,
Aldo

Hi, Seeker --

Just a short follow-up posting.

It's been over a month, and my site remains unlisted in "Arts/Online_Writing"...

Should I resubmit again?

Cheers,
Aldo Alvarez
Executive Editor and Publisher
Blithe House Quarterly : a site for gay short fiction
http://www.blithe.com/

Anywhere in particular under Arts/Online_Writing that you submitted it to?

I personally would not expect that you would be listed under Arts/Online_Writing in addition to the GLB category you're currently in since the GLB category essentially functions as a subcat of the Arts/Online_Writing one.

Hi, Motsa:

Earlier on in this thread, your colleagues expressed no objection to cross-posting the magazine in a general literature category as long as it was an Online_Writing one.

Actually, only one editor expressed that opinion. The other didn't actually talk about your site at all. The other GLB site you mentioned in your first post is no longer duplicated in Arts: Literature: Journals so your original argument for double listing your own site isn't valid. You'll also find that the GLB category is now effectively functioning as a subcategory of Arts/Online_Writing. Therefore, listing your site in both the GLB category and in Arts/Online_Writing would be listing you in child and parent categories, something we don't do.

Regardless, you still haven't indicated where you actually submitted your site so no one can give you a status update on it.

As an Arts editor I must admit to some confusion in this area. I have categories in Arts: Comics which have some cross-listings in the corresponding GLB specialty category, Society: Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual: Arts and Entertainment: Comics. My understanding of the guidelines was that this was OK because the latter is in a different top-level area (Society instead of Arts) -- that the only absolute no-no would be to list a site in two categories that share a direct lineage. Now, in this case, the specialty category Arts: Literature: Cultural: Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual: Online Writing is in Arts, rather than Society. But it also exists as an @link in Society: Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual: Arts and Entertainment - suggesting that it is conceptually part of the Society tree. And I can't think why the GLB category should be considered more of a "pointer to a specialized subset of another category" in one case (comics), but an "exclusive home" in the other case. Or I should say, the reason that seems most plausible to me -- i.e., that it just happened that way historically, due to the order in which editors in Arts and Society created their categories -- is a bit arbitrary or at least calls for clarification.

On the question of which non-GLB-specific category is best for this kind of online literary mag, note that Arts: Online_Writing is not just a big mess of amateur pages; its subcategories include Arts: Online Writing: E-zines: Fiction, which seems to me like a reasonable fit for your site.

@links denote categories that are physically placed in one area but that could function as subcategories of another. It's entirely possible to see @links transcending Top level categories. In this case, the GLB online writing category can serve as a subset of GLB resources (hence appropriate to @link to under Society/Gay,_Lesbian,_and_Bisexual/Arts_and_Entertainment) and also as a specialized subset of Arts/Online_Writing (hence an @link under Arts/Online_Writing would be appropriate).

&gt;&gt;http://dmoz.org/Arts/Literature/Cultural/Gay,_Lesbian,_and_Bisexual/Online_Writing/&lt;&lt;

This category is a misplaced, and needs to moved. You can't have an Online Writing category in Literature, since Literature is for writing in print. But many little categories like this were orphaned over the years, and when someone notices them, like now, they tend to get moved.

Listing a site in two categories follows the same rules no matter where those categories are; being in different top level areas makes no difference. In a perfect world, no site would be listed twice. All sites would fit perfectly in one category. But it's not a perfect world or a perfect directory, so we work with what we have.

In the case of Online Writing, sites listed there tend to be listed there as a last resort. The sites don't usually have a more specific topic reference and are simply Fiction or Poetry. In the case where a site covers writing about one specific subject, those sites will tend to be sent to that subject's category. So very few sites in Online Writing are listed twice in the directory.

It is probable that we need to do a bit more cross linking in these areas.

Now that I've been a little bit general, I'll be a bit more specific to this issue. The site in question would fit into Arts/Online_Writing/E-zines/Fiction; and there is no convenient way to cross link between the that category and http://dmoz.org/Society/Gay,_Lesbian,_and_Bisexual/News_and_Media/Magazines_and_E-zines/E-zines (which can contain a variety of genres besides Fiction).

Since there was only two waiting to be reviewed (counting Blithe House Quarterly), I listed it there.

Thanks for the clarifications.

Thanks for following up on this, folks -- we at BHQ appreciate it <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" />