May I suggest ...

this time not a website.

First of all, I apologize if I posted this topic in a wrong section. I am pretty sure the moderators will help moving it to the appropriate section as they all seem to be here.

This concept of ODP is wonderful but I see some deficiencies. As my name suggests I am highly caffeinated. I need to gather my points.

1. We all know ODP editors are volunteers. Good for them. They are doing marvelous job when they are editing. The reason why I said when they are editing is, when I browsed this forum I read many; I am the tough guy, you are not paying me anything...so shut up attitude. Yes, I would be irritated if my wife yells at me when I am trying to serve her a lunch. I know she won't yell at me. But she might ask me why I didn't get her a fork. I volunteered to serve her so I should have gotten her the fork before she asked. Since I forgot to get it, I will apologize and get her the fork. I am not implying you editors need to apologize. This analogy is not perfect fit for the editors here but close. Why belittle and squabble with the person who asks question? I am sure the person who asks those question doesn't know the status of his/her website. The answers you all give is like: nobody cares about what you think, the ODP rules say that...and ODP standards say this. The person doesn't even know if his/her website met the standards or not. Wouldn't it be easier if there is an automatic email dispatch from the editor to the site owner whenever it gets rejected? The site owner doesn't know whether it is reviewed or not.

2. Your volunteer editors could have reviewed thousands of sites while they were composing the shut up replies to the people. I hope you all won't take this personal. On top of that the caffeine is running. Who disagrees with me? I know it took me about 20 minutes to write this.

3. One last point I want to make is voluntory work is not of high quality. That is why it is free. I don't know why search engines like Google like DMOZ. Volunteers could also be motivated with some other things. It seems like nobody will monitor what an editor is doing. So an editor can reject or approve a website based on his/her own personal judgement/motivation. Can you tell me that is a work of high quality? I am not a fan of paid directory like Yahoo! either. A rich scammer can buy it and rip people off. At least on Yahoo! a competitor won't submit now and then to annoy the editor. But there should be a way to do this. In my opinion, editors should be employees. There is an easy way to pay them. I am going to propose one. Don't laugh. Just listen. When a person suggests a website, there should be a fee. If the site is rejected after review, the person should get a partial refund. The money which is retained will pay for the editor's time.

I think my caffeine worked well.

Now you can say whatever you want to me. I submited a website couple of months ago. I don't know what happened to it. I am just hopeful.

1. One of the problems is that folks think that their time is too valuable to read what ODP is actually about. If you were continually attacked for not doing what was never one of your objectives, what would you do? Write a FAQ? Very few read it.

2. Just a few of our thousands of editors are willing to offer advice and help here as a break from other activities.

3. Editors evaluate websites according to our Editor Guidelines not according to whim.

We are not a website listing service for site owners but plenty of other directories are. Feel free to ignore us and patronise them .

> We all know ODP editors are volunteers. Good for them. They are doing marvelous job when they are editing.
Yes and that is exactly what "volunteer" means. We edit when, where and what we personaly prefer 9within the guidelines ofcourse)

> I volunteered to serve her so I should have gotten her the fork before she asked. ....
> This analogy is not perfect fit for the editors here but close.
That analogy is not even close to how DMOZ operates. You want to know why? Because the editors did never volunteer to provide anything to the people who suggest websites.

> I am sure the person who asks those question doesn't know the status of his/her website.
The issue is that they can know the status without asking us.
They can know if a website will be rejected. If a website will not be rejected and it is not listed (something anybody can easely see) it must be waiting review. Very simple. Anybody with a decent amount of intelligence can figure it out.

> Your volunteer editors could have reviewed thousands of sites while they were composing the shut up replies to the people.
I volunteer to answer these questions. It is how I decided to spend a few minutes this morning.

> One last point I want to make is voluntory work is not of high quality. That is why it is free.
That is total BS. Most of the voluntary and free things are of much better quality than any paid alternative. Ever heard about Linux.

> It seems like nobody will monitor what an editor is doing.
The other editors do. And they do it continuosly. Editors who do wrong never will do it for a long time. They will either be corrected (most is just learning the guidelines) or be removed (sometimes a not so honest person manages to become an editor).

> So an editor can reject or approve a website based on his/her own personal judgement/motivation.
No they can not.

> At least on Yahoo! a competitor won't submit now and then to annoy the editor.
And neither do they on DMOZ. In all these years we might have had one or two who were stupid enough to waste their time trying to fool us in such a way.

> But there should be a way to do this. In my opinion, editors should be employees. There is an easy way to pay them. I am
> going to propose one. Don't laugh. Just listen. When a person suggests a website, there should be a fee. If the site is
> rejected after review, the person should get a partial refund.
If a directory would use a paying system (something DMOZ will never do) it should be the other way around. People who get their website accepted get a partial refund. Why give spammers a refund.
Such a paying system would never work for DMOZ as we ask people to suggest websites they think are worth listing in our directory. Not to suggest their own website. Just any website. If it would be possible I would prefer a system where people could not suggest websites they own only websites they do not own. That would fit the original idea of DMOZ perfectly. Unluckely it is not possible to create such a system.

> The money which is retained will pay for the editor's time.
We wouldn't be volunteers anymore. And know that most if not all editors would leave DMOZ when it would become a paid service. That would leave noone to review the suggestions. Is that waht you want.

> I think my caffeine worked well.
I think you would be better of staying away from any drugs (including caffeine and alcohol).

>If the site is rejected after review, the person should get a partial refund.

If you're looking for a pay system, I think this would work a lot better all around:

(1) If the site is ACCEPTED after review, the person should get a 50% refund on their NEXT suggestion.

(2) If the site is REJECTED after review, the person will get charged DOUBLE for the next suggestion.

(3) If the site is REJECTED and the person wishes to appeal, the site will be re-reviewed (at the double charge).

The logic is simple. People who suggest good sites are helping us, they shouldn't have to pay to help us. People who make worthless suggestions are wasting our time, they ought to pay and pay and pay (and, preferably, suffer, although that is probably not implementable.)