Idea for some sort of DMOZ thesaurus

Do you find that where you think there should be a category there isn't one because you couldn't think of the right word and so links that should be together are all over the place? Maybe there could be some sort of catalogued commonly related words that people could type in to make sure they are getting it right.
As I was writing this I had an even better idea. How about (this could be incredibly complicated) instead of having to search for the correct category straight away, key words could be entered e.g. university student department and it could give you some sort of percentage of relevance from some sort of calculation of the section title and the words in the category links etc. Hypothetically it sounds good technically you'll have to let me know.
Chew on it for a while then give me some info.

Well we have http://dmoz.org/preferredterms.html which is a list of common terms editors are supposed to use when creating categories, which is something like what you suggest. All editors have a link to this on their dashboards.

Certain categories, such as Arts/Celebrities and Regional/ have charters with specific sets of category names that should be used.

Yes that is true but I was thinking for more than just editors here. It would prevent so many sites being rejected because of bad placement etc. I didn't know about the arts bit though. Interesting...

Editors often have the same problem in finding the correct category as people who are submitting web sites. Editors use the search function in DMOZ to find the closest relevant category. These hints may help a bit:

- if you preface your search with c: it will search for a category with that search term as part of the category name,

- if you preface your search with u: it will seek that search term as a URL already listed in the directory.

- in general it helps to restrict searches to the particular tree in the directory.

- when you think you've found the perfect category, read the category description ! It will say what sort of sites are to be listed there, the scope of the category and points to consider when submitting the site. Often the submission guidelines will refer you to another likely category.

- last, when you've done the best you can in finding the correct category, submit with a clear conscience. Many, many editors get category selection wrong too. (I could give you names...)

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