Inactive Category

Hello,

I have a general question regarding the OPD Processes. I have recently submitted a site to a category that hasn't been updated since 2/28/03. Are there guidelines as to how often categories are updated? I understand and appreciate the voluntary nature of this great project; I am just curious. Thanks for your input!

Since it's completely voluntary, it waits until someone volunteers to do it.

There are people working in all the major branches, and sooner or later someone is bound to decide to work on the category. However, there are some backwaters where that takes longer.

Some categories are much more pleasant to edit in than others. Fortunately, we don't all have the same preferences.

No guidelines whatsoever. We are grateful to whatever volunteers for whatever work they do, wherever they do it.

However: some people choose to attack neglected categories; we have internal threads of "categories needing help", etc.

A typical category won't be updated more often than once every 6 months (do the math: 400,000 categories; 5,000 edits a day, some of them to the same categories -- that's well more than 100 days between category updates.) So in context, "neglected since February" isn't _very_ neglected.

Ask in the "Site Submission Status" forum about your submittal, and you can get a better read for how much needs to be done (as opposed to how much has been done.)

Doing a bit more math... Given the apparent shortage of editors compared to the task required of them, unless DMOZ keeps welcoming new editors, the backlog will keep increasing inexorably to the point where the directory's laudible objectives produce precisely the opposite result to that of the original goal. 6 months today, 9 months by 2005... before long people will simply stop submitting to DMOZ - or else the only sites to get in quickly will be those whose owners have good contacts to DMOZ editors (And the harder it is to get listed, the more unscrupulous folks will apply to become editors). I'm sorry to suggest that DMOZ's unexplained rejection of hundreds of perfectly good potential editors is becoming very much a matter of DMOZ shooting itself in the foot. After offering twice and being rejected twice, I do not intend to reapply. Too bad, one less editor for DMOZ, and the waiting lists keep on growing.

Well, you can prove anything with statistics....

From another perspective: DMOZ has grown by around half a million sites in the last year. A healthy 15% grow rate, though it would be nice if it was faster.

And, given that several hundred thousand sites must have been removed for 404ing, hijacks and so on, the actual number of new sites added must be closer to three-quarters of a million: an even healthier growth rate.

If that net rate of increase continues -- and there is no sign that it won't -- OPD editors would have to be the most gregarious people in the world to have good contact with all those site owners.

>Doing a bit more math...
Sigh. I should have limited this to people can compare pineapples to mockoranges and not come up with fruit salad.

>Given the apparent shortage of editors compared to the task required of them,
Who said anything about shortage of editors? The fact is, last time I checked, editors were (again) reviewing sites slightly faster than they're submitted.

And who are you to be "requiring" anything of us? We're doing our job as we see it.

>unless DMOZ keeps welcoming new editors,
who said anything about not welcoming new editors? In fact, we do, not that it's relevant in view of the statistics mentioned.

>the backlog will keep increasing inexorably ...
and...who mentioned any statistics about backlog, let alone backlog increasing? In fact, it isn't. It has been up to close to a million sites, and it's a bit down from that.

>to the point where ...
... imagination takes flight from the surly bonds of reality.

>6 months today, 9 months by 2005...
Look, before you start trying to search for linear best fit, go find an elementary math teacher and ask how many data points you need. If you are willing to take my word for it, it's "two", which (if you will permit some basic instruction in statistics, is "the number of points you have" plus "one".

You're confusing "statistics" with "frentic recitals of assumptions". You may have been listening to too many politicians.

People will always submit to dmoz.org because it is free. If dmoz.org did not accept submissions I believe we would just as big because building categories by finding sites on your own is what is the most fun - and slogging through unreviewed queues of sites on subjects you have no interest in is not fun.

Personally I am glad people submit but they have to understand those submissions are just site suggestions - we are still building the directory without processing those unreviewed.

My 2 cents -

before long people will simply stop submitting to DMOZ - or else the only sites to get in quickly will be those whose owners have good contacts to DMOZ editors

Click to expand...

There are a lot of editors who would argue that those pesky submissions are what gets in the way of building a directory.

The average editor, I dare say, would do very nicely if the site submission process were closed permanently. It's not going to happen, but the fact of the matter is that good editors build categories by finding sites, not by waiting for sites to be submitted. And no personal relationship with the webmasters is requested or required.

The best editors, in my not-so-humble opinion are those that come to ODP with a desire to give something back to the Internet; have some specialized knowledge (be it technical or geographic); and a passion for that subject area. These are the editors who get out on the web and find new sites, who conceive and build categories, and have the time of their lives doing so.

And, I've had the dubious pleasure of being involved in the ongoing cleanup of a previous editor's sloppy work: cut-and-paste descriptions, miscategorizations, puffery, repetitive words between titles and descriptions, and the like. That editor put quantity way before quality, and while he made a lot of webmasters happy, in my opinion, he made a negative contribution to the overall directory.

So if I had a vote in the new editor selection process (and I definitely do not have a vote!) I would insist that we be like the U.S. Marine Corps, and not take everyone who applied, but just a few good "editors" that I could count on. Editors who would be dedicated and committed, editors who would care about the directory, not aobut the webmasters.

Now, where do I turn in my soapbox?