Complaint [split from ODP editors are so slow]

Let them be listed ... Let them continue to be ignored

It's just a question of priorities. A finite number of editors cannot clear a million submissions, to a high quality, quickly. The priority is building a quality directory. One of the resources for that is the submissions -- but a large proportion of these are terrible. Other resources include non-online advertisements; newspapers; official documents (I recently referred in this forum to a publication of the European Central Bank); and so forth.

Yes, there are good sites unlisted. Let them be listed.

There are also terrible suggestions that have been ignored. Let them continue to be ignored for many more years.

I admit, I'm as impatient as the next person. Over on Project Gutenberg (which takes each page of each book through four rounds of proofing by different people, then has one person put the final book together) I pushed one book through round three in three weeks, and promised to do the final step. And now it's working through round four, with a predicted date of finishing in, lessee, 50 years, longer than any other book in my language. My work on round three is being prevented from being visible to anyone, AND I'm being prevented from doing more work on the postprocessing. (You were whining about what, a pizzley TWO years? Count your blessings, you slimy lucky ingrate!)

But I partly agree with you: I don't like waiting either.

But, the fact is, that simply doesn't matter. My emotions, my problem AND NOT YOURS: like the rest of us, you have enough emotional problems for two anyway.

What matters is ... what am I going to do to earn my bread TODAY? And ... what am I going to do to make the world better with me alive than with me feeding worms? (Of course, they may be the same actions.)

The PG folk will get to work promoting and finishing MY work ... or they'll do something else. I'll get impatient and set up a new website to post my lower-quality preliminary edition ... or I'll work on something else. In no case, in no possible case, is there any reason to whine about the good and generous and skilled folk at PG who (without any help from at all from me) would still publish thousands of books a year?

No, there isn't any reason to whine at all. Not from me as a consumer of books. Not from me as an independent but cooperative producer of books. And not even from anyone else who "competes" with PG by providing the same books (or different books, or better or poorer editions) less efficiently (that is, at higher cost.)

That's the way volunteer efforts work. The Red Cross supplies food to refugees, and Kroger's doesn't whine about it. People who aren't refugees and don't get food, don't whine either. But what if you don't like the Red Cross? You don't think it does enough in your neighborhood? Find what your neighborhood needs, organize your neighbors, and get to work! RC can't do everything and doesn't even try. But for any good work, the local folk who volunteer at RC after disasters may be the best help you can find.

On consideration, I think my case is more different from Alex's than I may have said. After all, I'm not a casual passerby at PG, telling them what they should do next: I have done thousands of pages for them. And my work on that book wasn't something I chose, for my own purposes regardless of anyone else's priorities or needs: it was one that multiple other volunteers had contributed to -- and that they would have contributed to even if I had never appeared. So ... I knew up front that my work was compatible with the community goals. Alex hasn't mentioned anything to suggest he was aware of the community goals, let alone that his work contributed to them in any way.

And whining is contemptible in any case. But for me to look at the PG volunteers, who do more each and every DAY than I do in a YEAR -- and some of whom do ten times what I do every day! -- and complain about them being "slow" goes beyond contemptible and into downright risible. ODP editors review thousands of sites daily -- more than editors at any other directory. ODP editors add more sites than the next two largest directories COMBINED. (And, for that matter, ODP editors also do, every day, what I could do by myself in a year. And some individual editors have done all by themselves, ten times what I could do at peak rate.)

Not only are all these people working together rapidly (hundreds of them more rapidly than I could!) not only are they are doing a good job at increasing their efficiency by avoiding reduplication of effort, but by focusing on unique contributions to human knowledge and experience, they are enabling all of society to avoid the kind of wasteful reduplication that everywhere characterized the dark ages (before the internet) and still characterizes much of so-called "e-businesses". And it doesn't matter how fast you are: if someone else has already done that work for everyone to use, your efficiency is zero percent! But if you're enabled to use someone else's work freely, your efficiency is infinite. And THAT is what these collaborative projects offer.

The limitation isn't speed. There isn't anything in the universe to compare with their speed or efficiency. The limitation is: their priorities are socially driven. People trying to drive their own antisocial agendas get very frustrated and stay that way (which is always a good sign of a healthy society!) People with ulterior motives (even non-antisocial ones) find their way not impeded -- but not necessarily helped: and if they push, they are astonished by the blowback. Hucksters -- however necessary they may be in some social niche -- find that practicing their skills is hazardous to their reputation AND their mission.

And all that is OK. The net is big. There's room for the amoral psychopaths, the hucksters, the insane, as well as for individualists, honest businessmen, and public-spirited organizations.

By Hutcheson

Just like Kroger's management NEVER believed that people don't need shelter, and Home Depot management NEVER believed that people don't need food. And Red Cross management NEVER believed that people only need food and shelter after disasters!

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You forgot the Insurance Company, Hutch.

Hey, the economy is COMPLEX. I can't describe the whole thing. I don't KNOW the whole thing.

I do know, trying to control the whole thing from one place, or with one technique, invariably leads to some pretty horrific societies. Which doesn't keep people from trying...

I really like your Replies.

Happy New Year !!

hutcheson said:

On consideration, I think my case is more different from Alex's than I may have said. After all, I'm not a casual passerby at PG, telling them what they should do next: I have done thousands of pages for them. And my work on that book wasn't something I chose, for my own purposes regardless of anyone else's priorities or needs: it was one that multiple other volunteers had contributed to -- and that they would have contributed to even if I had never appeared. So ... I knew up front that my work was compatible with the community goals. Alex hasn't mentioned anything to suggest he was aware of the community goals, let alone that his work contributed to them in any way.

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However, you've presumed that for me anyway.

hutcheson said:

I am astonished at the kind of ignorant arrogance that some people display -- as if they owned the net and nobody else could play. Alex, you do not own the net. The web has room for many things. I doubt not it even has room for you, Alex. But fortunately, you are not the Czar of the web -- and much will fit in the web that will never fit into your mind -- or, for that fact, even into the much broader mind of surfers who are not so blinded by our own immediate commercial advantage, and have learned to find online information meeting a broad range of human needs.

And that's OK. That is good. Anyone who wants to pay for server space can try to fit something new into the net. Who are YOU to say otherwise?

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When it begins to get personal, it's a sign the wit is out.

hutcheson said:

Hey, the economy is COMPLEX. I can't describe the whole thing. I don't KNOW the whole thing.

I do know, trying to control the whole thing from one place, or with one technique, invariably leads to some pretty horrific societies. Which doesn't keep people from trying...

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My thoughts exactly. Hey, the internet is COMPLEX. The ODP can't describe the whole thing. The ODP doesn't KNOW the whole thing.

The ODP does know, trying to control the whole thing from one place, or with one technique, invariably leads to some pretty horrific societies. Which doesn't keep people from trying...

There are hundreds of millions of potentially listable sites to review - and eight thousand editors listing twenty to thirty thousand of them a month. You do the math. That means it will take anything from 0 to 800 years for any site at random to be listed. Average 400 years. Assuming no further growth. Come back and complain in 401 years.

oneeye (former editall/catmv)

jdaw1 said:

The priority is building a quality directory. One of the resources for that is the submissions -- but a large proportion of these are terrible.

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Indeed. Quality remains a good goal, especially on the net.

jdaw1 said:

A finite number of editors cannot clear a million submissions, to a high quality, quickly.

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True. However we voice it, and some persist in denial, there is a real possibility that a very large ratio of submissions to editors will bring down the submissions system, quality directory or not.

The ODP does know, trying to control the whole thing from one place, or with one technique, invariably leads to some pretty horrific societies. Which doesn't keep people from trying...

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If you're trying to imply that the ODP is trying to control the Internet, you are sorely lacking in some understanding of the Internet. We're just building a directory, one of many on the Internet.

True. However we voice it, and some persist in denial, there is a real possibility that a very large ratio of submissions to editors will bring down the submissions system.

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Hence the reason we don't place a high priority on the pool of suggestions.

oneeye said:

There are hundreds of millions of potentially listable sites to review - and eight thousand editors listing twenty to thirty thousand of them a month. You do the math. That means it will take anything from 0 to 800 years for any site at random to be listed. Average 400 years. Assuming no further growth.

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The submissions system has become ridiculous. My suggestion is that it should be radically improved or discontinued.

The submissions system has become ridiculous. My suggestion is that it should be radically improved or discontinued.

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No need to discontinue it. It still *can* be of use in some categories.

that a very large ratio of submissions to editors will bring down the submissions system.

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There is no system per se to bring down. People's submissions/suggestions go into a list of unreviewed for each category. This list is one of the resources an editor can use to build up that category.

Eric-the-Bun said:

There is no system per se to bring down.

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There is: the ODP's submissions system. It might not be the ODP's priority, but a huge backlog of site submissions will soon give the ODP a reputation. Don't underestimate the power of negative perception. Change forces change. The ODP is sustained by commercial interests, the ODP's "open" is no longer the altruistic "open" of Open Source and a grade of editors gets paid. If there were to come a time when a submission has to wait ten years for an editor's reaction, commercial imperatives will force the submissions system to change or to go, perhaps along with the current system of volunteering. Nuff said.

Alex75 said:

The ODP is sustained by commercial interests

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News to me.

Alex75 said:

Nuff said.

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Complete agreement from me, and I suspect from others.

The submissions system has become ridiculous. My suggestion is that it should be radically improved or discontinued.

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The main thing that is wrong with the submission system is that for some reason people get the wrong idea about what it is. They think it is a service for them to get their site listed when all they have done is made a suggestion and they believe the suggestions made via the link are (or should be) a priority, when it is just one of a dozen methods by which editors find sites. The fault lies in not ensuring that the correct message is reinforced at the time someone suggests an URL using language that is not only unambiguous but makes it clear that it is not a webmaster service but a pitch by a potential supplier of material, i.e. the submitter is not a customer; the directory is the customer and the webmaster the supplier. It is clear there are people who are not getting that message from the current wording and changing it can do nothing but good. Of course agreeing a wording everyone likes is never easy...

oneeye (former editall/catmv)

Alex75

It seems that even on New Years Eve you dont have any sense of wits. I am very scared out of my wits of your insenseless wits. Why are you so angry ?
You seem very intelligent and know everything try Feng-shui to calm yourself.

a grade of editors gets paid

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Technical staff are paid for their technical contribution, they are not paid for editing and nor is anyone else.