Internet is growing

Listing a site really only takes a matter of seconds.

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Sometimes! I certainly would not want to leave the impression that it only takes a few seconds for us to list a site, otherwise the general public would be expecting editors to list about 240 sites an hours (at 15 seconds per).

Listing, or deciding not to list, a given site can (and often does) take much, much more time that a matter of seconds. It is the process of listing (select the correct radio button and click on submit) that takes just a few seconds.

Looking at a submission from Joe Slimey, who has been trying for a very long time to get his mirrors listed, and has come up with a new approach, often takes a lot of time and research.

When I first started editing, and had a very kind meta looking over my shoulder using my plentiful mistakes as a teaching tool, I was amazed at the things that I thought were fine and she pointed out were not-so-fine. "How," I asked, "do you spot this stuff?"

"After a while," she patiently replied, "you develop a nose for bad sites."

And she was right. Sometimes you look at a submission and it simply smells bad. And you might spend 30 minutes trying to either confirm or invalidate your sense of smell. It is time well spent, and after a while you learn to trust your instincts.

luggagebase said:

Going back to your premise, and referring back to spectregunner, I don't see this as a problem for the ODP as much as it is for someone who is hanging their success on DMOZ listing. If you can honestly tell me that this doesn’t concern you, then fine. But I would bet some serious $ that’s truly what is bothering you. I can totally understand your frustration. I use to think that way.
Then again, I could be entirely wrong.

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When I joined this forum I was trying to get my site listed. But then I found myself reading the posts. And I understood some of DMOZ spirit. How can I expect from volunteer editor to “jump“ when I say so? I pay for advertising.

But, one problem can be frustration. If you suggest a site you must wait 1 month to ask about what’s going on and then another six to ask again. That can be frustrating. Read the posts you will understand why. I don’t want the editors to post me before others because not DMOZ will decide the success of my bussiness (oh, and many sites get listed long before the 7 months border but nobody posts a thank you for that. I suggest to make a forum for this ).

Yes, for a bussinessman can be frustrating to see the competition listed and his site (wich is obviously better ) not. And they are not used to wait. But folks, do as I do: pay for advertising. Ah…, here I spot a problem: can you compete with a giant company? And they are listed in DMOZ and in a lot of other places…..,they have giant banners and they are on the first page... That’s the real problem of a small bussiness started with few money but with a lot of heart. Well people, the solution is your creativity not ODP.

There is another angle to consider as well. Not all websites have anything to do with business or commerce and not all surfers are searching for a place to spend money.

They are looking for places of worship, schools, community and civic organizations, non-commercial sources of information and the like. Buying placement is not a reasonable option for these sites.

spectregunner said:

There is another angle to consider as well. Not all websites have anything to do with business or commerce and not all surfers are searching for a place to spend money.

They are looking for places of worship, schools, community and civic organizations, non-commercial sources of information and the like. Buying placement is not a reasonable option for these sites.

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Not to mention the myriad of Personal Websites and Genealogy sites people use daily to research family history, find old friends or keep in touch with distant relatives. Paying to have these sites listed highly is not practical or desired.

Now, if someone died and made me king, I would probably implement a weighting system based on the value of websites to humanity/society.

I'm not sure what the weighting would be, but I can assure you that noncommercial sites would definitely have a higher weight than commercial sites.

I guess that means that the average wait time in shopping would be measured in decades.

spectregunner said:

Now, if someone died and made me king, I would probably implement a weighting system based on the value of websites to humanity/society.

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I thought that already happened your highness? I guess we should stop those executions now.






Disclaimer: The above message is a joke! No persons have been harmed in the making of this post and no true executions have been scheduled.

spectregunner said:

I guess that means that the average wait time in shopping would be measured in decades.

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ya, and world peace.

Never call off the executions -- it makes the firing squad very unhappy.

spectregunner said:

Never call off the executions -- it makes the firing squad very unhappy.

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Actually it just gives them a different target to shoot at!

There is another angle to consider as well. Not all websites have anything to do with business or commerce and not all surfers are searching for a place to spend money.

They are looking for places of worship, schools, community and civic organizations, non-commercial sources of information and the like. Buying placement is not a reasonable option for these sites.

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Not to mention the myriad of Personal Websites and Genealogy sites people use daily to research family history, find old friends or keep in touch with distant relatives. Paying to have these sites listed highly is not practical or desired.

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You are both right. But I was talking about the most (and this is just my opinion) pushing webmasters. If you look at the threads you must notice that a large number are business related.
I believe the main issue was that most submitters represent small companys who need visitors (or buyers) to survive. And they want their site listed quickly because they can’t compete with “the large behemots” (I’m quoting somebody but I can’t remember the nick).
I don’t want to make a difference between commercial and noncommercial sites because behind them are still human beings. Both sides have strengths and problems.

Oh, and the net is more then 50% business.

I don't disagree, but as an editor, how should I spend my time:

-- adding yet another car dealer, furniture store, printing firm, or real estate agent, just becuase they submitted or paid to have someone submit for them.

-- searching for arcane, non-commercial sites that cover topics we have barely touched, or that have stunningly unique content that will only be of value to a fractional percentage of our surfers.

All the professional webmasters and seos laugh at the Geocities-type sites, but some many of them are really, really wonderful. They are often labors of love, the have information rarely found elsewhere, and what they lack in design and style, them ore than make up with in terms of uniqueness.

But I tend to vote with my heart -- I love those screwy little sites wiht no budget, no marketing, and not a clue with regards to ODP. And if the pile of unreviewed sites in Business/This/That/The_Other_Thing continues to grow, I usully don't tend to worry about it. I may periodically go in spend a few hours and knock off some low hanging fruit (correctly submitted sites with ODP compliant titles and descriptions), but I tend to not have a goal of ever clearing out all the submissions. I also do not sort by submission date, a horrible old submission deserves no more of my time than a horrible new submission. I tend to swim through the submission pool looking for good submissions.

I used to worry about that kind of stuff. Wow, the submissions pool for that category is getting really large, or gee, its been a long time since anyone updated that particular category. Then one day one of Hutcheson's epit posts finally struck home. ODP celebrates the edits that I do, not the site of the pile that remains undone. So an editor goes off and finds a part of the directory where we have a vacuum, then goes off and identified a category and populates it with half a dozen sites. We celebrate the addition of those sites and don't look over the editor's shoulder and complain about sites that haven't been listed. As a result, many editor dashboards tell more about the editor than the editor could about themselves....but I digress.

birdie said:

> I don’t believe DMOZ can be “the largest human-edited directory of the web”

It is the largest (almost 4.5 million sites) - what other directory comes close to this?
It is the fastest growing (almost 2000 sites a day) - what other directiry comes close to this?

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I think youre right... it is the largest and fastest growing.
I dont see why dmoz wont be able to keep up with the growing internet? I seems to be the best at it...

Just a suggestion, I think if really needed a second downline of editors could be created. Organizations could take the place of a single editor in one certain category, and have its own peoples do the work. It would be great to see an open source software that manages this, just like submissions to dmoz, the submissions should be done to editor's website, instead of everyone having to submit straight to dmoz.