Oh, first of all, an apology: I don't much care for the term "webmaster" either, possibly on similar grounds.
>I was just trying to voice a desire for some sort of tracking for those of us who are legitimate web developers/owners/submitters and such.
It's a nice idea. But how can you do that and exclude the spammers -- who provide 90% or so of suggested URLs, and a much higher percentage of the queries about them?
I can't think of a way, without actually reviewing the site first.
Think about the demographics. Most people are single-site owners: they have their business or their hobby, and a website about it, and that's all. There will be no track record for them, and no way of getting one, and no use for it when we've got it. We review their site, we list it or not. That's the end of it.
Then there are the professional web developers or SEO firms: creating or promoting websites for other customers (who are not only genuine businesses and one-off site owners themselves -- surely they advertise their own services online -- but they also can provide a stream of other useful websites from their clientele. They are PROFESSIONALS. Knowing how the ODP works is a required skill for them. Knowing the ODP guidelines and criteria and processes, COLD, is their JOB. They can have a reputation, and it makes sense to keep track of it.
So, should the ODP make some sort of special status for these people? We've discussed it internally, and the analysis is simple. "People who want to help the ODP, and that we trust to help, are called editors. What other category could conceivably be useful?"
It sounds like, practically speaking, you're thinking along similar lines. The best way to get to know a process is to experience it. And web developers or SERP perps aren't forbidden to edit: like everyone else, they MUST declare affiliated sites. like everyone else, they MUST NOT give edit to give advantage to their affiliated sites.
Perhaps most important, although difficult to measure, is the attitude: we're here for the surfers, who are our only users. And once that has been grokked, a lot of decisions become much easier. For instance, could an editor just review suggestions, and not look for sites any other way? In the final analysis, that isn't even serving webmasters in general: it represents an absolute refusal to serve anybody but SEO types! It is clearly abusive editing. An honest editor best serves webmasters who haven't had ANY SEO work done by or for them. And again, should it matter whether a website owner is making (1) only a little money, (2) lots of money, (3) less money than if they had an ODP listing, (4) less money than if they didn't have an ODP listing, or (5) none of the above, ever? Again, with the ODP attitude firmly in place, we can focus on the question: "Does THIS website provide unique information to the surfer?" If it does not, it doesn't matter how many dollars of revenue are being "lost" (that is, are going to someone else instead) because there is no ODP listing. If the site does provide information, then it doesn't matter how much good, or harm, it will to to the site owner for it to be listed.
Now, for some people these conflicts of interest are just too much to handle. Anyone has to be careful. One blatant "lapse", a pattern of subtle preferential edits, and one falls into the category of "people whom, we know, shouldn't be trusted".
Which is, of course, the final category. People who've earned a reputation for suggesting sites that were obviously unlistable (or worse, sites that were subtlely unlistable.) Now, you don't GET a reputation like that without working for it: that is, suggesting (or listing or promoting) AdSense doorways or fraternal mirrors or similar noninformative promotional sites.
Which comes back to conflict of interest. In your day job, you may develop or promote sites that would not be listable in the ODP. (Even I have done that, and professionally speaking I am not in the web promotion or website development field.) But an honest promoter has to tell the client what is listable, and what is not. (How do you know? It's his JOB to know these things, remember? If he HAS to ask the editors, he's not being honest with your client -- he's not telling them he doesn't have the skills he was being paid for. And, once again, it comes back to attitude. There is a lot of information about the ODP available. But when it comes down to it, anyone can be a good editor without EVER spending a millisecond trying to train anyone to be ANYTHING except an editor. The ODP is not and ought not to be a training organization! If none of us ever did any of that, it would be OK. The professionals can learn on their own, or go back to some easier job: either option is (and ought to be) OK.
I've worked for small, medium, and large companies, and been associated with other organizations. An organization that survives will always be making decisions about what it will try to do, and what it won't -- what it will stop doing in order to focus scarce resources on what it needs to do -- in short, what best serves its mission. People who don't want to serve that mission, or want to serve another mission -- can just go to another organization. There's nothing of arrogance about that: it's far more a sign of realistic humility. "We CAN'T do everything, let's focus on doing one thing as best we can. Because if we don't do that one thing better than anyone else, we have no reason to exist." What the ODP does is serve surfers. Period. And ... there is a lot more that should be done even to accomplish THAT mission. Everything else ... can be left for some OTHER organization, designed and equipped for other purposes, which can almost surely do whatever it does better than the ODP. Training? Site promotion? Advertising? Disease control? Weather prediction? E-text generation? All, perhaps, worthy goals. All better done by someone else. Possibly someone else with help from the few ODP editors who are interested; possibly someone else without any help from ODP editors. But certainly, someone else.
And people who are interested in the ODP mission are welcome to help -- even people who contribute to some OTHER mission, somewhere else.
