Yes, it definitely can take a long time for a site to get listed.
Fortunately, "minimize MAXIMUM time for a site to take to get listed" is not an ODP goal. I haven't the foggiest idea how it could be done. (How about, for instance, all the sites that are never submitted, but which we all know are among the most valuable?)
I think it's fair to say "minimize the AVERAGE time it takes for the best sites (note again, these have NOTHING to do with the SUGGESTED sites!) to be listed" is an important consideration.
But which are the best sites?
That's where editors' judgment is critical.
And the larger the active pool of editors is, the better. And the more efficiently editors can work (that is, not being hampered by bureaucratic nitpicking or bogged down by the
"prescribed rules for finding sites" being hopelessly logjammed by spammers, or being forced to waste time defending decisions to people who really haven't actually demonstrated any concern at all for the ODP -- and so on) the more sites get reviewed quickly.
The more VARIED the editor community is (in terms of topical interests) the better -- the more comprehensive the taxonomy can be, and the more likely excellent but specialized sites can be appreciated quickly.
The more productive the editors feel -- the more likely they are to see their work make a significant difference -- again, the more likely they are to donate more hours of time.
Those things are what matter. Protecting editors from irate or frustrated people who really don't care about the ODP anyway. Protecting editors from idiotic rules that have no relationship to actual directory productivity. Protecting editors from time-wasting bureaucratic makework. Freeing editors to judge what topics are more important to search, what sites are more valuable to list, what techniques are more productive to develop.
That's what would be useful. Needed? From an economic point of view, the ODP is a supply-driven project -- it can use whatever resources are available (editor time, informative websites, search tools) and, of course, whichever resource is in shortest supply is the bottleneck. But "demand" simply doesn't enter the equation. It doesn't "need" anything (other than, perhaps, protection from selfish abusers.) More demand is irrelevant, less demand is equally irrelevant. The goal is making the most productive use of the donated resources.
Who defines the most productive use? The people who provide the resources. If some other project offers a more effective or more efficient use of resources, then this project does less with less. With more resources, there is an opportunity to "waste" some of those resources in experimental techniques designed to improve the efficiency of the critical resources.
Which is, in fact, what the ODP does with the resource we have most in abundance -- developed websites. If we are less efficient at using them, it's because we can afford to be. There is an oversupply. What matters is being efficient with what's in short supply.
So...if you tell us that some websites might get overlooked forever because we're focussing on more efficient use of developer time...
... then we're unquestionably making the right economic decision -- the one that will provide the maximum value for our users.
Think it through. There are all sorts of ways to come to the same conclusion. But don't feel stupid if you didn't figure it out at first. I might not have ever figured it out without several years' experience of working the system as it is AND trying to think of ways to make it less random (from the provincial perspective of a single site) -- until I finally figured out how important that randomness was.
Fortunately, "minimize MAXIMUM time for a site to take to get listed" is not an ODP goal. I haven't the foggiest idea how it could be done. (How about, for instance, all the sites that are never submitted, but which we all know are among the most valuable?)
I think it's fair to say "minimize the AVERAGE time it takes for the best sites (note again, these have NOTHING to do with the SUGGESTED sites!) to be listed" is an important consideration.
But which are the best sites?
That's where editors' judgment is critical.
And the larger the active pool of editors is, the better. And the more efficiently editors can work (that is, not being hampered by bureaucratic nitpicking or bogged down by the
"prescribed rules for finding sites" being hopelessly logjammed by spammers, or being forced to waste time defending decisions to people who really haven't actually demonstrated any concern at all for the ODP -- and so on) the more sites get reviewed quickly.
The more VARIED the editor community is (in terms of topical interests) the better -- the more comprehensive the taxonomy can be, and the more likely excellent but specialized sites can be appreciated quickly.
The more productive the editors feel -- the more likely they are to see their work make a significant difference -- again, the more likely they are to donate more hours of time.
Those things are what matter. Protecting editors from irate or frustrated people who really don't care about the ODP anyway. Protecting editors from idiotic rules that have no relationship to actual directory productivity. Protecting editors from time-wasting bureaucratic makework. Freeing editors to judge what topics are more important to search, what sites are more valuable to list, what techniques are more productive to develop.
That's what would be useful. Needed? From an economic point of view, the ODP is a supply-driven project -- it can use whatever resources are available (editor time, informative websites, search tools) and, of course, whichever resource is in shortest supply is the bottleneck. But "demand" simply doesn't enter the equation. It doesn't "need" anything (other than, perhaps, protection from selfish abusers.) More demand is irrelevant, less demand is equally irrelevant. The goal is making the most productive use of the donated resources.
Who defines the most productive use? The people who provide the resources. If some other project offers a more effective or more efficient use of resources, then this project does less with less. With more resources, there is an opportunity to "waste" some of those resources in experimental techniques designed to improve the efficiency of the critical resources.
Which is, in fact, what the ODP does with the resource we have most in abundance -- developed websites. If we are less efficient at using them, it's because we can afford to be. There is an oversupply. What matters is being efficient with what's in short supply.
So...if you tell us that some websites might get overlooked forever because we're focussing on more efficient use of developer time...
... then we're unquestionably making the right economic decision -- the one that will provide the maximum value for our users.
Think it through. There are all sorts of ways to come to the same conclusion. But don't feel stupid if you didn't figure it out at first. I might not have ever figured it out without several years' experience of working the system as it is AND trying to think of ways to make it less random (from the provincial perspective of a single site) -- until I finally figured out how important that randomness was.
