Identifying things as uninteresting could be one part of organizing "everything." Whenever I organize my office, for example, I end up throwing lots of things away.
Yes, there are a lot of pretenders, but still, there is a lot of real content, or else why have an index?
The average I have in mind would include only sites that had been actively submitted at some point, for which reviews had been completed sometime within the prior calendar year. Upon reflection, a median would be be more helpful than an average; a submitter would then know that about half of all suggestions were resolved within a certain length of time. So, the statement would be something like: "Of all reviews completed last year, one half were completed within six months. The review completed in the shortest time took
three days; the longest time for any completed review was three years and fifty-seven days." Something like that.
Most of those submitting a suggestion probably do not have a detailed understanding of what goes on inside the ODP, and in particular of how reliably the site will record and retain their submission. Most people's experience with large organizations includes many instances in which information is lost, misplaced or otherwise stuck within the workings of a bureaucracy. And I have read on your forums here that there was in fact an ODP system malfunction (in 2006, I think) during which some submissions were actually lost, and those who had submitted them had no way of knowing that this had occurred.
It is true that the system I'm suggesting here would not help in those cases where submissions are actually lost, because (in order to avoid consuming server resources) I have not suggested any active way to inquire about the status of a submission (and such a feature could be helpful in detecting such anomalies). But for the majority of cases, when the ODP process works as designed, the proposed facilities would result in a positive confirmation of inclusion or refusal, and knowing that such a message is to be expected will (in theory) decrease the impulse that people naturally have to seek information regarding the status of their submission. With such a system in place, they can be fairly certain that if they have not yet received any notification, then their application is still in the queue, and has not yet been either accepted or refused. That, combined with the suggested median wait time information, could substantially reduce the anxiety of submitters, and annoying status requests from anxious submitters, as well.
As to what a submitter might do with the information that a site had been refused, that would vary from person to person. If the submitter were the webmaster, the information that ODP had rejected the site might, when combined with other factors, tip the balance on a decision of how much time to invest in the site, or even of whether it would be worth continuing the site at all. It might alter a business plan that was based upon a certain number of expected visits per month. It might spark a decision to increase the budget for paid advertising of the site.
As for whether DMOZ and its editors are powerful, I would only say that we are all more powerful than we realize.
Yes, there are a lot of pretenders, but still, there is a lot of real content, or else why have an index?
The average I have in mind would include only sites that had been actively submitted at some point, for which reviews had been completed sometime within the prior calendar year. Upon reflection, a median would be be more helpful than an average; a submitter would then know that about half of all suggestions were resolved within a certain length of time. So, the statement would be something like: "Of all reviews completed last year, one half were completed within six months. The review completed in the shortest time took
three days; the longest time for any completed review was three years and fifty-seven days." Something like that.
Most of those submitting a suggestion probably do not have a detailed understanding of what goes on inside the ODP, and in particular of how reliably the site will record and retain their submission. Most people's experience with large organizations includes many instances in which information is lost, misplaced or otherwise stuck within the workings of a bureaucracy. And I have read on your forums here that there was in fact an ODP system malfunction (in 2006, I think) during which some submissions were actually lost, and those who had submitted them had no way of knowing that this had occurred.
It is true that the system I'm suggesting here would not help in those cases where submissions are actually lost, because (in order to avoid consuming server resources) I have not suggested any active way to inquire about the status of a submission (and such a feature could be helpful in detecting such anomalies). But for the majority of cases, when the ODP process works as designed, the proposed facilities would result in a positive confirmation of inclusion or refusal, and knowing that such a message is to be expected will (in theory) decrease the impulse that people naturally have to seek information regarding the status of their submission. With such a system in place, they can be fairly certain that if they have not yet received any notification, then their application is still in the queue, and has not yet been either accepted or refused. That, combined with the suggested median wait time information, could substantially reduce the anxiety of submitters, and annoying status requests from anxious submitters, as well.
As to what a submitter might do with the information that a site had been refused, that would vary from person to person. If the submitter were the webmaster, the information that ODP had rejected the site might, when combined with other factors, tip the balance on a decision of how much time to invest in the site, or even of whether it would be worth continuing the site at all. It might alter a business plan that was based upon a certain number of expected visits per month. It might spark a decision to increase the budget for paid advertising of the site.
As for whether DMOZ and its editors are powerful, I would only say that we are all more powerful than we realize.
in, to see who else explodes. jimnoble