Flower Shops, Templates and Content

I am a retail florist and floral design/shop operations instructor and have 25+ years of experience in the industry. I recently applied to be an editor for my city category because it is quite underdeveloped (with only 2 entries.) My questions have to do with duplicate content and templates.

There are two dominant companies providing floral design images that are used by most of the websites listed in the ODP. These companies also provide template sites for local retail florists.

My review of businesses currently listed in http://dmoz.com/Shopping/Flowers/Wire_Services/ shows a high percentage (more than 70%) of sites using the same images from these two national companies. Most contain little, if any, truly unique content. Many differ little from the 'national company' template sites except site design and navigation. At least one of the sites listed in the category IS a template site. The same can be said for many of the sites in http://www.dmoz.org/Shopping/Flowers/Florists/North_America/United_States/

This area (florists and flower shops) is quite confusing with regard to unique content. Since the directory includes individual city categories, would not the fact that a flower shop IS physically located in a specific city (even those with modified, not just off-the-shelf template sites) be a helpful addition to the ODP for the users who would prefer to find local florists in a particular city?

Template sites which have been enhanced with the addition of numerous unique floral designs and articles (content) can get rejected while 'off-the-shelf versions' still represent a notable portion of the retail flower shop sites in the directory. Would a current editor be encouraged to remove those sites?

I am hoping my editorial status will be approved and would like to understand these policies and their most current interpretations.

Thank you

First, I'd like to thank you for applying to become an editor. Based on the seriousness of thought you have put into your question, I'd imagine you'd make a pretty good editor -- but alas, I have nothing to do with the selection process, nor could I do a very good job of articulating the criteria.

With regards to your question -- if you are accepted as an editor, I'll give you the same advice that I give to others. Namely, don't even try to edit for at least a week. Instead, print out and read (daily) the editing guidelines. Then go to the internal editor fora and spend a lot of time reading and digesting. There are years worth of quesion, answers and discussions in there, and you'll likely find a thread or threads that discuss your very questions.

As this is a public fora, it is probably not appropriate to get into more detail. I will, however, make you an offer: if you get accepted, send me an internal feedback (my editorname is the same) and I'll "hold your hand" for the first few weeks and help you get off to a solid start.

Hope this helps.

Thank you for your very kind offer. The 'sit back and learn' mode is an important one for any new endeavor.

The retail flower business mainly consists of 'mom and pop' type flower shops. Most lack technical expertise and rarely build web sites from scratch. They do know their own products and service well, however...and have unique products & service to offer on a local level.

Template sites abound in our industry. (Some are easily recognized while others would be noticed by few outside the business.) Many 'unique-looking' sites are mainly (if not 100%) comprised of off-the-shelf images. I'm very curious as to how these distinctions are made with regard to inclusion in the ODP.

Again, thanks.

[edited]I see your application now waiting for review. Anaheim, right?

Yes, that's me.

I'm very curious as to how these distinctions are made with regard to inclusion in the ODP.

Click to expand...

Rather than getting into that into a public forum, let's wait and see how your editor application fares, and if you are accepted, I'll make a point of spending some quality (electronic) time with you on that very matter.

Again, thanks spectregunner.

To my utter delight, since the time I applied to be an editor and made the post above, my own website was added to the ODP (after having previously been rejected.)

Regardless of my acceptance as an editor, I believe there would be a benefit to the overall content quality (for readers seeking information in the above-mentioned areas) if these guidelines and policies were more consistent and better understood by those wishing to submit sites (as well as those who aspire to edit them.)

I truly appreciate your offer.

I realize that pictures may very well be recycled, but do you expect everyone to take their own pictures of certain common plants for sale? I know that they _could_ do this, but is it required to be a unique entity worthy of listing?

Sorry for the delay in my response. I've been working out of town the last six days.

I'm very excited to have received an email informing me that I've been accepted as an editor.

I do not expect every site to take their own photos of plants and/or flower arrangements. I do hope that sites featuring their own images will be given the opportunity to be added to the ODP regardless of whether they are self-created or template-based.

Thank you for this terrific learning opportunity.

Welcome to the ODP. You might want to read through most of the editor guidelines (accessible from your editor dashboard) and ask further questions in the internal fora.

As a general rule of thumb we care for unique content not for design.

A little bit more detailed: If someone takes some content available somewhere else on the net and presents it in an incredible design - this is quite unimportant to us. It still has nothing new on the content side. If someone gathers lots of content (from newspapers, books, his own photos, ...) that is considered unique. If we would not add that site, the user would not be able to get the information on one of the other listed sites. So that is a perfect reason to list a site.

This is just a follow-up and note of encouragement to folks thinking of applying to be an ODP editor.

Spectregunner has indeed given me help and encouragement. I have learned quite a bit about the answers to the questions I first posed. (One is to make sure you post in the proper forum. This post was not about abuse and should have gone in the general editor area - how inelegant! )

Keep repeating 'unique content, unique content' (as stated by Windharp) and it all makes sense.