Odp Delusion

If I have 100 sites in a category waiting for review, I would, of course, like to add the best site first. However, until I review all 100, I have no idea what site is best. When I decide to review a site, all I have is list of suggested titles and descriptions. The only way I have to judge the difference is the quality of those suggested descriptions - which is why (for many editors) a site with a well written description gets reviewed first.

Other than that, it's certainly possible that the best of the sites gets reviewed last, and there is no way to control that situation.

alex75 said:

Suppose a submitted site, S1, has to wait one year to be reviewed. In that time, worse sites S2, S3, ..., S20, enter the directory in S1's category. From what I read here, an editor's priority will be the listed sites, S2 - S20, thereby lengthening the time that S1 has to wait. A double blow for S1, you'll agree. This leads me to a suggestion: a new category of front-end volunteers to filter submissions before they get to the editors.

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motsa said:

Can you clarify what you're saying? If S2 - S20 suddenly appeared in the category, someone must have added them. If they came across them on their own, chances are they would have come across the better S1 as well. If they were suggested but not reviewed, then they'd all be in the same pool of suggestions as S1. I don't see where S2 - S20 would have any effect on S1 at all. What have I missed in your scenario?

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You say, "chances are they would have come across the better S1 as well.". That is a big assumption. Some editors don't come across the better S1. Study 20 categories at random over a period of time, comparing the new listings with search results on the web. You will discover that the proportion of editors who fail to find the better S1 is not negligible.

It is a widely known fact that a large number of site submissions are bad. The editors tell us here that most are so obviously inappropriate you can reject them just from a glance. Why not then have a new system whereby a team of "sub-editors" does a preliminary screening of the submissions? That would reduce the amount of junk around the jewels and would allow the editors more time to edit.

Alex75 said:

It is a widely known fact that a large number of site submissions are bad. The editors tell us here that most are so obviously inappropriate you can reject them just from a glance.

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If it was that easy it wouldn't be such a big problem.
Some suggestions can and are being filtered out very fast.

Alex75 said:

Why not then have a new system whereby a team of "sub-editors" does a preliminary screening of the submissions? That would reduce the amount of junk around the jewels and would allow the editors more time to edit.

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Deciding if a site is listable or not is a big part of the editing proces. After that one only needs to write a description. If someone want to filter sites you can become an editor. If someone is rejected as an editor we certainly won't have him filter out websites. You are either an editor or you are not.

fathom said:

Actually most questions would be covered "verbatim" by a 5 minute read of the guidelines [under the appropriate section].

They are 'explicited' and full of examples - but you do need to read them.



If people don't want to read... no amount of additional writing will change that.

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Where is this 5 minute read? I genuinely believe that I have read about most of the threads on the site and everyting I can get my hands on, on the dmoz.org site, but I like so many others still dont know EXACTLY what the OFFICIAL GUIDELINE and FAQ's actually are?

People DO want to read, they DO want to find out how to comply with DMOZ guidelines. Like the Eds and Mods, people who suggest sites for the directory are busy too, and dont want to waste time submitting if they know that their site isnt up to scratch. It simply wouldnt be logical?

Regards,

xx0033 said:

Where is this 5 minute read? I genuinely believe that I have read about most of the threads on the site and everyting I can get my hands on, on the dmoz.org site, but I like so many others still dont know EXACTLY what the OFFICIAL GUIDELINE and FAQ's actually are?

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Very easy http://dmoz.org/add.html and all links on that page

xx0033 said:

People DO want to read, they DO want to find out how to comply with DMOZ guidelines. Like the Eds and Mods, people who suggest sites for the directory are busy too, and dont want to waste time submitting if they know that their site isnt up to scratch. It simply wouldnt be logical?

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Not in our experience.
Why else would so much people
- suggest sites that are clearly against DMOZ guidelines
- write titles and descritptions that are vlearly against DMOZ guidelines
- ask questions at R-Z that are answered in the FAQ
This all fits in the overall egocentric menatlity I see in Western-Europe en America. "I want it and I want it now."
Luckely there are organisations and people like DMOZ who don't give in to this behaviour.

How to suggest a site to the Open Directory
Submitting Your Site
Open Directory Editing Guidelines

Consider the relative value of a resource in comparison to others information resources available

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The 'relative value' varies between categories and over time. A webmaster looking at their site honestly and objectively in relation to other sites should be able to decide whether their site offers more or less than the best site listed in the category - in the same way that it is the webmaster who should be able to be the best judge on the most suitable category to suggest their site to .

The thing is many people still confuse 'not being listed' with 'having been rejected'. If a site meets the guidelines and an honest and objective opinion is that a site should be listed, then it probably will be in the fullness of time provided that the goalposts don't move in the meantime.

Hence we say submit and forget.

regards

John

[ok pvgool was quicker but his link doesn't work for non-editors! ]

>they DO want to find out how to comply with DMOZ guidelines.

Yes. And 90% of these people have absolutely no interest in contributing anything whatsoever to the ODP mission.

In all such cases, the only way to comply with the ODP guidelines is to go away and leave the ODP alone.

This says nothing whatsoever about the "quality" or "usefulness" or "better-ness" of any site -- those simply aren't EVER considerations. (And, for that matter, those COULDN'T be considerations -- how COULD we judge those things? WHO ARE WE to judge such things? what GOOD to the directory would it be for us to judge those things? We can't, we shouldn't, and it wouldn't do any good anyway!)

The ODP is ALL about "information and the authoritativeness thereof." So who are you, and what is special about you? What do you know that nobody else does? What happened to you that nobody else knows? What have you done that nobody else ever did? What would you do for money that nobody else could? That's all that matters. And the fact is, nobody wants to contribute to the ODP mission because it's the ODP mission. Some people want to contribute to the ODP mission because they share (with the ODP founders and editors) a particular human aspiration. Other people don't feel that desire (and this is not a place for ethical judgment -- who is to say naked curiosity is any more essential to true humanity than, say, a taste for poetry or Grand Opera, neither of which I can claim?)

So it's not a matter of being "up to snuff". It doesn't matter HOW far a site goes, or how well it goes, if it's going in an irrelevant direction. (I don't say "a wrong direction" -- again, this is not an invitation to enter into an ethical debate. I merely say "a direction which does not figure in the ODP mission." And the ODP mission is not the only mission that can or should be pursued on the net. There are many kinds of useful indexes that the ODP process simply cannot provide, and will never try to provide. There are other useful indexes on the web. It would be insane for us to compete with the phone companies' phone number indexes, or with the individual goods-for-sale indexes at eBay or Froogle, or the individual web object indexes at Google, or the business indexes of local chambers of Commerce, or the "find one of our affiliates" databases of Avon or Tupperware or Amazon or whoever.)

So, what's so hard about that? Every effective organization in the whole world operates that way. It picks its mission, and its communication channels simply ignore people who are on other missions. Deliberately, irrevokably, -- and non-judgmentally. After all, just like other humans, ODP editors are free to pursue other missions -- IN OTHER PLACES.

I don't think it's that hard to figure out. I think some people know perfectly well what's going on, and just flat don't care -- they think they can run rough-shod over the ODP community, by quoting our own rules at us to force us to do what we know is a betrayal of our own obligations to the ODP. (And If I accept a privilege from someone--anyone--to contribute to their mission, it is unethical for me to use that privilege for contrary purposes. If I'm a bank teller, it's called "embezzlement". If I'm a government official, it's called "treason". If I'm an ODP editor, it's a betrayal by any name.)

I still can't judge. Some people really ARE that stupid; and some people really ARE that blind to any use of language besides imposing their will on other people.

But we keep telling people about the ODP MISSION. What contributes to the ODP mission is what will get listed. The guidelines don't matter, not at all. They are defined to serve the mission; they can be revised at any time to better serve the mission; and they aren't "rules" anyway, they are only guidelines to help editors figure out what (in prior experience) has proven to serve the mission.

People who are fixated on the rules -- and there are many of them -- simply aren't ever going to figure it out. This includes both the arrogant jerks -- and we've all seen them, here and in other forums -- who presume to lay down draconian burdensome laws right and left for other people, even while they wouldn't consider limiting their own vicious conduct in any way whatsoever. But it also includes people who are reading the rules trying to figure out how they can avoid their marketroidish effusions looking like any well-known kind of spam.

But the fact is, the only way to avoid looking like promotional spam (in the eyes of experienced surfers) is to not BE promotional spam. And if a site looks like promotional spam, it's liable to be canned, regardless of whether or not it fits in any official or unofficial list of "common types of promotional spam."

I like that, which is why I'm an editor here. Someone else may not like that, which is why they contribute to some OTHER site with some OTHER mission.

Forget the rules. Look at the mission. If you like it, fine; if not, fine. If you want to work on it on your own site, fine. We'll love to know about it, and even on our own, we'll find it ... eventually. If you want to work on that mission at the ODP, the ODP could use the help. And if you don't want to work on it at all, ... funny thing, we aren't going to say you have to. (That's the difference between editors and SERP nazis -- WE aren't so arrogant as to think we can make rules for THEM.)

In all honesty some of the guidelines are not that clear nor well explained. If they were then there would be no need for FAQs on this unofficial site. There are particular weaknesses in some branch FAQs and descriptions, and in some category charters, which are out of date or misleading. We (editors and former editors) all know of examples of where even the experienced editors can take opposing views of the interpretation of some guidelines.

There is a difference between laziness - not reading what is put in front of one, that IMO is inexcusable, and confusion caused by not understanding what is being read or noting that what is written does not match what appears to be editing practice.

oneeye (former editall/catmv)

alex75 said:

Why not then have a new system whereby a team of "sub-editors" does a preliminary screening of the submissions? That would reduce the amount of junk around the jewels and would allow the editors more time to edit.

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pvgool said:

Deciding if a site is listable or not is a big part of the editing proces. After that one only needs to write a description. If someone want to filter sites you can become an editor. If someone is rejected as an editor we certainly won't have him filter out websites. You are either an editor or you are not.

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To repeat, a new system whereby a team of "sub-editors" does a preliminary screening.

We have such a system. Several years ago, editors jury-rigged a scheme whereby one editor with privileges would make the suggestions visible in a Test category, and other editors would prescan. When it caught on, staff added a "greenbusters" permission level. Editors can typically get greenbusters permission in categories much bigger than they could directly access -- and greenbusters is often the first step towards full access.

This has been in place for years, it's in the publicly available guidelines at http://dmoz.org/guidelines/greenbuster/ and editors have hardly made a secret of it.

You're welcome to read all the guidelines to see how the ODP actually works.

The guidelines don't mention this, but it's also been widely mentioned by editors: the unreviewed pool is in equilibrium -- the number of suggestions removed is very close to the number added.

Add to this the high probability that when considered an "economic resource," the elasticity of demand of the pool is strongly biased towards spam submittals.

And ... it is pretty clear that it would be to everyone's advantage to redirect efforts away from the unreviewed pool.

hutcheson said:

it is pretty clear that it would be to everyone's advantage to redirect efforts away from the unreviewed pool.

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That is the kind of policy that would bring the ODP into disrepute. Why continue to request submissions if there is going to be an unreviewed pool from which the ODP redirects efforts. It seems to me that those affiliated with the ODP are unaware of or ignore the destructive potential of negative public perception.

Imagine a big company that puts out a perpetual situations-vacant message. How would the public react when it becomes known that the company plans to redirect efforts away from the unreviewed pool, while still accepting applications? A public outcry, naturally, if not followed by some movement in the share-price.

Apparently, ODP's policy-makers think different rules apply to them. You can see it in some of its policies and practices, which make you go, "What were they thinking?". There seems to be a general, naive belief there that you will eventually get your message across by putting out policy statements, even if your public is developing a negative perception. Is it because it is a big organisation with relatively little accountability?

When you have laissez-faire and little accountability, you need a healthy dose of reality-testing. Here's a fact. The ODP's submission system has become ridiculous. If the ODP can't handle the load adequately, it should replace or abandon the practice.


edit: deleted 's

You are missing the point.
To build the directory an editor can use several sources for new sites to include
- local newspapers
- search enigines
- other directories
- links on sites already listed or found through any of the other sources
- the pool of suggested sites
During the years the pool of suggested sites has become less and less important. Quality (or better lack of quality) is the only reason.
When DMOZ thinks that the quality of suggested sites becomes to low it might be decided to not accept new suggestions anymore.
Would this be harmfull. Not all. Editors will continue to add sites to the directory. As we don't have to spend time on spammy suggestions it might even be helpfull as we than can spend more time on finding good sites.

pvgool said:

You are missing the point.

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That is a typical, unfair way to argue. You simply declare that someone misunderstands, and then you go on to make your own point which doesn't necessarily contradict him. For fair argument, after you say that, you should mention where the other person missed the point, and then go on to justify what you consider to be the correct direction. Incidentally, your response agrees more with what I said than disagrees with it.

Here's a fact. The ODP's submission's system has become ridiculous

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When I review a site for category X, I check its links page to see who they are linking to and extract any links new to me for future review. By following this method all useful sites for category X will be reviewed eventually.

From the perspective of building up a directory, this is a good and sufficient method to follow. However it could take a long time for new sites to be detected and hence the existence of the link suggestion feature.

For my category X, there are an average of 3 suggestions a year and the majority of sites have been added through finding the sites through links from other sites not the submission pool. However the pool is useful since it alerts me to new/changed sites quickly. Category X is in a non-commercial area and the links on the sites and those suggested tend to be of good quality.

In Category Y, the sites tend not to have links pages or they are of the ‘link farm’ type and once I see this is so, I do not bother with these links. Category Y is semi-commercial, gets more submissions and more than 50% are not relevant.

I don’t work in commercial areas where every link on a site is suspect and the majority of the suggestions are spam.

Think of the submission pool for a category is the equivalent of another links page that an editor can look at. The submission pool for each category acquires a ‘reputation’ for usefulness in the same way as a website’s link page would. Hence the pools from some categories are so full of spam, that it is very difficult to find the genuine suggestions.

For the majority of non-commercial categories the suggestion pool works very well but is still dependant on a volunteer to do the work.

If the ODP can't handle the load adequately, it should replace or abandon the practice.

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The value of the submission pool for a category relates to the overall quality of those who submit to it and is totally outside the control of the ODP. Abandoning the practise would deny the majority as a result of the actions of a minority which, unfortunately, do affect the service to the majority.

Is it because it is a big organisation with relatively little accountability?

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This is false. We are not a big organisation. We are a collection of individuals who co-operate together under a set of accepted guidelines and rules.

a healthy dose of reality-testing

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The reality check is that the fault lies with those who are creating and promoting negative and false perceptions of the ODP.

The fact that we as editors are volunteers is a concept that we belabour because many people are unwilling to accept that fact. Many of the suggested changes relate to introducing something by which the proposer hopes to be able to control the ODP or an editor and do dot take into account the basic premises under which the ODP operates.

I think you need to clarify who you think we should be accountable to and why. Are you putting forward the proposal that all websites require to be monitored and controlled by an outside body?

Why continue to request submissions if there is going to be an unreviewed pool from which the ODP redirects efforts.

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We don't request submissions, we allow submissions. It's a minor bit of semantics, maybe, but it's critical.

Imagine a big company that puts out a perpetual situations-vacant message.

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Actually, it's more like a company that allows people to submit their resume to a resume pool even if there aren't any job openings right now. That company is really under no obligation to do anything with those resumes other than hold them in a pool for a specific amount of time before purging them.

The ODP's submission system has become ridiculous. If the ODP can't handle the load adequately, it should replace or abandon the practice.

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Or the public should realign its expectations to match the actual functionality of the suggestion system, i.e. you have the ability to suggest that we consider listing your site but we have the right to do whatever we want with that suggestion (even if that means we do nothing at all with it).

I think that the big misunderstanding here is the classic one that seems to be out there about what the Open Directory Project actually is doing. The origins of the ODP would tend to support the idea that the ODP is another directory that is here to list web sites for people, the same way that something like Yahoo! would do. But I think you'll find that most people involved with the ODP now look at it as a project to build a directory of web sites just for the sake of building a directory of web sites. We offer the data to users who might like to look for information in a directory (we realize that may be very few people), and downstream data users who wish to use the ODP data on their web site (Google happens to be one of those downstream data users). People have to stop looking at the ODP as a listing service, or comparing it to other similar initiatives. The ODP is more of a community of like-minded individuals who are working on a group project, more along the lines of an open-source project.

So long as the site suggestion does bring in useful information, there's no reason to cut it off.

People who are thinking of a site suggestion as a "load" they can dump on the shoulders of ODP editors, are badly confused. Slough, slough: you can't dump on us!

People who think of the site suggestion as a way of lightening the REAL load -- that is, of HELPING the ODP editors find appropriate sites at the exact moment when that is what they are looking for -- THOSE people exist, their suggestions ARE helping, and there's no reason to cut THEM off.

As for the ones who think they can impose a load on us ... just keep waiting, y'all!

All things being equal, not talking about spam, incomplete or trash sites, none of this discussion alters the fact that it can take a really long time for a site to get listed. You're lucky if your site belongs in a category without too much traffic and it has an interested active editor. Unlucky otherwise.

You're lucky if your site belongs in a category without too much traffic

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I would say that's not even true, I am an editor for a large number of categories, but right now I'm very busy with real life, so I don't have time to review that much. Eventually I'll be spending more time, as I did in the past. In the meantime, I am still doing some editing.

Any updates or "red tagged" (sites that have gone dead) usually get taken care of the same day. As to the rest, I tend to randomly select a categroy, and randomly select a site to review.

That means that a newly suggested site in a category that has a lot of traffic has an equal chance of being reviewed and it could get listed within a few days.

As we say time and time again, submit and forget. Submitting the site increases the chance of getting it reviewed, rather then waiting for an editor to find it some other way. Anything else regarding an ODP listing is a waste of your time and energy.