Something's a bit off in Denmark

Hello, all. New forum member, here. I found a link to ODP from Google guidelines, so I decided to submit my site to ODP, and after I did there was an invitation to become an ODP Editor, so I applied ... all the way to this forum, and this first post.



I have been reading forum posts, and it seems that about half of all forum posts are url submission status requests; and half of the other half are Editor application status requests. Replies are similar in both cases... "it may take months or years...".

At the risk of being hated on first read, I'm going to speak my mind without adornments: Something's rotten in Denmark. Notice I'm not saying the long waits aren't "fair", or any such thing. I'm just saying that something smells bad about the whole thing. Consider this:

The justification often given for url reviews taking so long is the availability --or lack thereof-- of Editors. This would say to me that ODP is desperately in need of Editors. But then, when people apply to become Editors, they are also waiting for long periods of time for their applications to be reviewed by "Meta-Editors", who apparently are also at a premium.

One problem generating another problem, generating another problem; and no apologies offered. Yet, it would seem to me the solutions are plainly obvious: Lower the barriers to entry by new Editors and Meta-Editors until the shortages and long waits are relieved. Entice people to become involved with ODP in better ways than a single suggestion/link.

From the point of view of a new submitter+applicant, let me tell you that the general feeling one gets here is extremely depressing: One of complete and utter powerlessness: "Thou shall be judged, and our judgement shall be final." "Thou shall not even receive an email to confirm whether your submission was approved or rejected; it is YOUR onus to guess." And it doesn't feel much better when applying for Editor.

Philosophically speaking, while the general motto is "the power of democracy", the reality of it smacks of "the total power of this elite". Notice I've said "from the point of view of...". I'm not passing judgement on the people or the organization; but merely giving you feedback on what it feels like being on the outside looking in.

The (not so) subliminal message of disempowerement continues with little details, such as the removed ability to upload or link an avatar picture at the forum without even an explanation. Even a short statement such as "sorry, we don't have enough web-space/bandwidth for avatar pics," would relieve this ugly feeling. With no such statement, the message it conveys is "we are omnipotent here, and you are nobody, and you will submissively accept all our descisions, and then beg that we accept you. We decided you cannot link to an avatar pic just because we can; and you can do nothing about it."

This is not a cheerful and welcoming feeling. One's natural reaction to being put in a position of such utter powerlessness is to say "Well, F@$% You, and forget about my helping you with this." And given that Editors are unpaid volunteers, "beggars can't be choosers" should apply to ODP, rather than to the applicants; but ironically, here Editor applicants are made to feel as beggars 100% of the way. I can't really imagine by what magic or miracle there's any in-flow of Editors whatsoever, given that; except by looking at myself, as an applicant still willing to give ODP the benefit of the doubt, in spite of the nagging temptation not to.



Admittedly, no website can ensure high quality of its contents while being completely Laissez-faire about its staffing. However, from a point of view of project management, and people management in general, my experience is that too much formality kills the 'Loving Feeling'; --i.e.: Prevents you from attracting and keeping the right people." And from what I've seen browsing the categories, that missing 'loving feeling' is evident in the general aesthetics of the site... drab, colorless... metaphorically more like the decor in a tax office in a dictatorship than like that of typical homes in a democracy: --i.e.: 100% utilitarian.

For a slight contrast, consider Wikipedia.org:
Wikipedia also attempts, --and largely succeeds, if I may note-- at maintaining a standard of quality by being selective about its staffing and having strict self-governing rules. Within those rules, however, there's quite a bit of leeway and conflict resolution alternatives; but more importantly, there is a willingness to compromise a bit in the formalities if such a compromise can be shown to increase participation substantially. The result is fairly positive: Reading the comment pages of Wikipedia articles is entertaining and fun, and sometimes illumining about the subject matter. There are heated polemics very often, but by the same token there's "life" there, to that extent. I would subjectively conclude that Wikipedia "found its balance". The same I don't feel can be said of ODP: In this Age of Information, that a review of a url should take months --not to speak of years-- is a downright failure. That a review of an application to become Editor should take months is a failure with intent. That the rules are that rejection of a url is not notified to the applicant can only be perceived as capricious and tyrannical. Yes, you can make any rules you want... It's YOUR website... that's not my point, though. A large, public organization is expected to establish a more democratic position relative to the rest of Society than to merely say "we do things the way we want because we can." And my last point is that you can't, really; not in the long term, at least...

I submit, ODP needs to take an honest look at itself and re-examine its directions, if it is to grow with the Internet, as it is stated in its goals. With such dire under-staffing as is evident at present, it can not, and will not keep pace with the growth of the Internet; and trying to hide this inability by trying to forcibly define the Internet as the subset of it that it can handle, will result, sooner or later, in someone else taking the idea but implementing it better.

Just my $0.02
Hope I didn't offend anybody, but that my criticisms may result in positive changes.

A few points:

Editor applications:

As you may have heard, all editors have some (read-only) access to the internal workings of the directory. I believe that certain black-hat SEO people could take advantage of the information, so it might be best not to accept all editor applications. In addition, (at least with what I can see), it's difficult to see all the actions new editors might do. If we were to accept more new editors, we'd need to ensure that other, more senior editors, are monitoring their actions. As all editors (except for a few paid AOL employees) are unpaid volunteers, this would be difficult to ensure.

Avatars and signatures on this forum:

It's not a matter of bandwidth, it's a matter of users bypassing the forum rules on not posting URLs of sites suggested to the directory. The user's proposed web site could be in the avatar image, or in the signature, or in an image in the signature. (I suppose we could disable URL and IMAGE tags in signatures for non-editors, but I don't know if the forum software can identify such.) For what it's worth, editors, are asked not to put URLs in their signatures, so that, although I support EFF, I should not put a link to their site in my signature.

"Life, don't talk to me about Life"...

The internal DMOZ fora are quite lively. A decision has been made that "lively discussions" here are likely to misinterpret ODP policy, and, to avoid having some incorrect statements appear as if they are official, we're asked to be careful. The official DMOZ blog shows quite a bit of life in the blog comments, even though some comments may have been removed for defamation.

And I don't think you've really offended anyone. It's just that there are some policies, here, and even on Wikipedia, which exist because of mandates from "above". And, even on Wikipedia, some of those are not available to the general group of editors.

Hahaha, thanks for the cool and refreshing reply; I expected I'd be put through a meat-grinder.

Okay, let me just say, if I were in charge of ODP --or DMOZ, whichever is the right acronym--, I'd be feeling an excruciating sense of urgency to somehow get this project to meet the challenge it's created for itself.

And my first thought about what I would do, in such a position, would probably be something along the lines of lubricating the process by which Editors are promoted to Metas. I'd try to generate a population explosion of Metas, even to the detriment of Editors. A rapidly expanding Meta population, my theory would be, would accelerate the reviewing and processing of Editor applications and re-applications. In other words, within some limits, I believe it would be found that a self-regulating mechanism exists, whereby converting Editors to Metas might result in the number of Editors remaining more or less constant; and that in the long term would result in faster growth in the Editors population that the growth of Metas robs away from it.

Sorry if I sounded less constructive in my first post. I was just trying perhaps a bit too hard to get a point across. That to say that applications, whether for url's or Editors, may take years due to lack of human resources is fair enough, but not good enough. It's fair because it crosses no legal or ethical bounds. It's not good, because it's defeatist and apathetic. There ought to be a solution. There ought to be many a solution. That the project is Open Source and run by volunteers is no excuse. Mozilla is an Open Source project, run by volunteers, but the one time I reported a bug, I got the best feedback I could imagine: No stupid automatic "thankyous" or any such crap. Rather, I got news of people looking at my report, discussing it, relating it to other bug reports, discussing possible solutions... could track the whole process. What I regret the most about it, to this day, is not having found any other bugs to report.

That would be my immediate vision for ODP.

Anyone here ever read about "Queue Theory"?
One of its conclusions is that queues are for the birds, most of the time.
Not the queues as devices, but keeping stuff in them is for the birds.
Well, I'm speaking in Computer Science terms. Say you have a process or thread that produces data, and another that consumes it; between the two you probably need a queue where data are stored temporarily until the consumer thread or process gets around to consuming the datas therein.
But Queue Theory says that the best thing to do with queues is to make sure that their contents are consumed quickly, and that the queues are kept empty most of the time.

If we apply this to banks and cache registers at supermarkets, we discover that their management don't know Queue Theory from a hole in the ground. They all seem to think that there's somethin right, or at least not-wrong, about customers having to line up for services. Queue Theory would teach them that they gain absolutely nothing from having clients line up and wait, and that putting cashier hats on their non-cashier personnel to help process peak hour demand would be enormously profitable to their business, as, in fact, what limits the length of queues is the clients that walk away from them.

Same principle, IMO, applies here. ODP/DMOZ/whatever has absolutely nothing material to gain from having long queues of waiting url applications; --and I submit, has much to lose, in the long term.

Hahaha, thanks for the cool and refreshing reply; I expected I'd be put through a meat-grinder.

Okay, let me just say, if I were in charge of ODP --or DMOZ, whichever is the right acronym--, I'd be feeling an excruciating sense of urgency to somehow get this project to meet the challenge it's created for itself.

And my first thought about what I would do, in such a position, would probably be something along the lines of lubricating the process by which Editors are promoted to Metas. I'd try to generate a population explosion of Metas, even to the detriment of Editors. A rapidly expanding Meta population, my theory would be, would accelerate the reviewing and processing of Editor applications and re-applications. In other words, within some limits, I believe it would be found that a self-regulating mechanism exists, whereby converting Editors to Metas might result in the number of Editors remaining more or less constant; and that in the long term would result in faster growth in the Editors population that the growth of Metas robs away from it.

Sorry if I sounded less constructive in my first post. I was just trying perhaps a bit too hard to get a point across. To say that applications, whether for url's or Editors, may take years due to lack of human resources is fair enough, but not good enough. It's fair because it crosses no legal or ethical bounds. It's not good, because it's defeatist and apathetic. There ought to be a solution. There ought to be many a solution. That the project is Open Source and run by volunteers is no excuse. Mozilla is an Open Source project, run by volunteers, but the one time I reported a bug, I got the best feedback I could imagine: No stupid automatic "thankyous" or any such crap. Rather, I got news of people looking at my report, discussing it, relating it to other bug reports, discussing possible solutions... could track the whole process. What I regret the most about it, to this day, is not having found any other bugs to report.

That would be my immediate vision for ODP.

Anyone here ever read about "Queue Theory"?
One of its conclusions is that queues are for the birds, most of the time.
Not the queues as devices, but keeping stuff in them is for the birds.
Well, I'm speaking in Computer Science terms. Say you have a process or thread that produces data, and another that consumes it; between the two you probably need a queue where data are stored temporarily until the consumer thread or process gets around to consuming the datas therein.
But Queue Theory says that the best thing to do with queues is to make sure that their contents are consumed quickly, and that the queues are kept empty most of the time.

If we apply this to banks and cache registers at supermarkets, we discover that their managements systematically don't know Queue Theory from a hole in the ground. They all seem to think that there's something right, --or at least not-wrong--, about customers having to line up for services. Queue Theory would teach them that they gain absolutely nothing from having clients line up and wait, and that putting cashier hats on their non-cashier personnel to help process peak hour demand would be enormously profitable to their business, as, in fact, what most often limits the length of queues is the clients that walk away from them.

Same principle, IMO, applies here. ODP/DMOZ/whatever has absolutely nothing material to gain from having long queues of waiting url applications, unless someone at the top is getting a sick kick out of it; --and I submit, has much to lose, in the long term.

I understand your concerns. Keep in mind, though, that you are basing your comments on the incomplete picture that you've gotten from reading a few threads here. Unsurprisingly, the most vocal of people are usually those who are unhappy -- the happy people just get on with the business at hand. So you don't read too many posts from the people who've been accepted as editors or whose sites were reviewed and listed relatively quickly.

Can site suggestion reviews take a long time? Yes. It's the nature of the beast, I'm afraid. We thank people for suggesting their sites for review but editors are not required to make the pool of suggested sites their priority. Unless and until AOL issues an edict that the pool of suggested sites is to be an editor priority (and that would introduce its own problems), it's always going to mean that it can take a very long time for a suggested site to be looked at.

Editor applications never take years to process. Never. Most are processed within several weeks. Some may take a couple of months, especially if the application is for a small non-English language that few metas are fluent in. I realize that it may seem to be a simple solution to you: need more editors to review suggested sites, so add more new editors; need more new metas to review new editor applications, so make more new metas. But life is never as simple as all that.

For a slight contrast, consider Wikipedia.org

Click to expand...

Wikipedia's content is different from the ODP's so what works there would not necessarily work here. Wikipedia has issues with people spamming URLs but links are only a tiny part of their content. All we do are URLs. So the potential for abuse and gaming the system is higher.

Could we do some things differently? Sure. Will we? Who knows. But I do thank you for sharing your thoughts.

And my first thought about what I would do, in such a position, would probably be something along the lines of lubricating the process by which Editors are promoted to Metas. I'd try to generate a population explosion of Metas, even to the detriment of Editors. A rapidly expanding Meta population, my theory would be, would accelerate the reviewing and processing of Editor applications and re-applications.

Click to expand...

You're looking at the role of metas as little more than "new editor application processors". That is only one part of the community management that meta editors are responsible for. It's important that anyone becoming a meta already have demonstrated that they understand the directory's big picture and that takes time and energy on their part.

That the project is Open Source and run by volunteers is no excuse.

Click to expand...

The ODP is not "open source".

Same principle, IMO, applies here. ODP/DMOZ/whatever has absolutely nothing material to gain from having long queues of waiting url applications, unless someone at the top is getting a sick kick out of it; --and I submit, has much to lose, in the long term.

Click to expand...

Problem here is that we don't have queues. There is nothing ODP-related that resembles a queue of any kind. What we have are pools -- of suggested sites, of editor applications -- that someone can dip into essentially at random and pull up something to look at. The most important thing to understand is that the pool of suggested sites is not our priority as editors. It is merely one tool that editors can use to build up a category and editors are under no obligation to use it or to review a suggested site in any specific timeframe. I realize that that is not what people want to hear but it is a fact of ODP life.

Hahaha, tell me about spam... It's a crisis that never seems to stop getting worse.

And point well taken, I'm the king of the newbies here, and being opinionated as I always am, in every setting. The good thing about uninformed and opinionated recalcitrants like yours truly is that, like broken clocks, we happen to be exactly right twice a day, which properly working clocks can rarely boast. ;-)

I have no points to argue in your reply, but I do have an observation: It follows what I see here as the tradition of justifying. My intent was precisely to point out a need for gumption. A need for those who call the shots to come out from behind this protective shield of justifications, and to realize that there is a need for change, for action. The need may not appear urgent, but when it does it may be too late. If ODP continues justifying instead of solving its main problem, the day will come when some other open... --or not-- organization will rise to the challenge and take over. The only thing that keeps you guys able to keep long waiting lists for url processing is the lack of competition is this niche; but we live in a highly competitive world.

And I promise you, even if my url is processed tomorrow morning, I'll be saying the same thing next week. ;-)

motsa said:

You're looking at the role of metas as little more than "new editor application processors". That is only one part of the community management that meta editors are responsible for. It's important that anyone becoming a meta already have demonstrated that they understand the directory's big picture and that takes time and energy on their part.

Click to expand...

True, that's how I was looking at Metas. Well, then, the fact that Metas have other things to do besides reviewing Editor applications, supports my argument: If reviewing Editor applications is, say, 20% of what Metas do, an increase of 20% in the Metas population could double their rate of Editor application reviewing.

The ODP is not "open source".

Click to expand...

Point very well taken. I guess I was focusing on the spirit of it, rather than thinking of it as a software project.

Problem here is that we don't have queues. There is nothing ODP-related that resembles a queue of any kind. What we have are pools -- of suggested sites, of editor applications -- that someone can dip into essentially at random and pull up something to look at. The most important thing to understand is that the pool of suggested sites is not our priority as editors. It is merely one tool that editors can use to build up a category and editors are under no obligation to use it or to review a suggested site in any specific timeframe. I realize that that is not what people want to hear but it is a fact of ODP life.

Click to expand...

Well, my argument is not dependent on the criteria for item selection from the queues; so "Priority Queues" are not queues either, but often function as queues in systems architecture perspective. Your argument about Editors not being even expected to deal with these pools of requests is a much stronger argument. So this project doesn't define itself as strictly a "push" system whereby url's come in solely as requests; but that it can function as a "pull" system, whereby Editors go looking around for url's to include.
Fair enough, and point well taken.
I would still argue, however, that while this may be so in strict terms, the "de-facto" reality is that the "push" mechanism is the predominant driver. But I don't really know this; I'm just guessing.

Here's an idea:

How about "syndicating" or "franchising"?

Here's how it occurs to me it could work. There are a gazillion places out there that mirror or in some way or other use ODP's data. ODP's powers that be, or even a group of Editors and Metas could get together and come up with a set of "franchise" rules. (There must be a better term than "franchise", but I'm too lazy right now to reach out for the thesaurus.) So, those other sites could set up their own forum and whatnot around the idea of contributing to ODP/DMOZ. To use your logo, they have to agree to uphold the rules and regulations. Once they've proven their worth, after a trial period, they can add url's to the ODP/DMOZ database directly, without requiring HQ review.

How about "syndicating" or "franchising"?

Click to expand...

I think what you are referring to we've already tried in the early days of the project with 'preferred content providers'. I don't think it worked out very well for anyone concerned, and is unlikely to be repeated.

Of course thats's a personal observation, and I have no clue what will happen in the future.

Needless to say, I know nothing of what happened during that episode. If I were to take a wild guess, probably some combination of two things:
1) The quality of their contributions was not up to par (entities compromised by spammers, lack of understanding of the goals and principles, etc.)
2) The quantity of their contributions was not up to par (lack of motivation).

The first problem could at least partially be addressed by some of what I was suggesting, of having well written rules and guidelines; --i.e.: treating the plan as seriously as a franchise; and instituting a trial period of, say, one year; or perhaps measured in contributions rather than time, such as "First 77 url contributions will be re-evaluated by HQ." Or else leaving it open, like "During the trial period, HQ will re-evaluate submissions; and once HQ decides that such trial period no longer is needed for your chapter, it will be ended and your contributions will be allowed directly into our database."

The second problem is more complicated, and involves Psychology. Nobody does anything for nothing. There has to be some kind of reward, though it not always needs to be monetary. I made the point earlier, in passing, that I thought there could be a better way to attract Editors than just a short invitation notice.

By the way, there is also an apparent contradiction that needs to be addressed, IMO:
When you apply for the inclusion of a url into category X, after the submission you get an invitation to apply for Editor of category X. But if you do apply for Editor of X, then you are accused of having a conflict of interest, because you also applied for a url for category X. Perhaps I'm wording it a bit strongly by using the term "accused", but I do so on purpose to call attention to what it feels like. My question was, and still is, "then why the Hell you invite me to apply for Editor of X in the first place?!"
What's missing is some kind of statement clarifying that conflict of interest does not constitute an offense, per-se; but that abuse of power as Editor would; --or something to that effect. Something to relieve the feeling of being "suspect", when one is asked to reveal one's involvement with websites. Otherwise, remove the invitation.

To get back to Psychology, the invitation is not enticing enough, I find. Don't ask me why I applied, anyways; I don't know; but on most days I wouldn't have. One of the best ways to make things enticing is by having competition. If you ask a friend at his or her home to eat a raw worm, you'll probably get nowhere even if you offer them money; but set up some kind of public competition, like Survivor, and they'll probably do anything in the hope to win, even if you offered them no money at all.
Let me note that, in my book at least, this "need" for egotistical rewards in no way disparages the concept of altruistic motives. We humans are aggregations of things. This is true even in a biological sense: The population of symbiotic organisms living within our bodies outnumbers our bodies' own cells 10 to 1 (though they amount to less than 1% of our bodies by weight). Hair has a life of its own, and ages at its own rate. Our skins wrinkle in old age because the skin continues to grow in extent even after the rest of the body has stopped growing.
In "spiritual" terms, we all have our altruistic side, whether served or not; but it has to coexist and compete with our less altruistic sides. Having non-altruistic motivations to participate in altruistic endeavors does not tarnish, IMO, our altruistic motives, in any way; it merely gives them a few chips to exchange with our less altruistic sides, to help them prevail in negotiations with the latter over what we do next.
Thus, I believe there is nothing to lose and much to gain from injecting a bit of fun in otherwise too serious commitments. Even a popularity vote for "Editor of the Year" could add a bit of such fun and spice up this most sombre project.
Again, maybe I'm jumping to conclusions too soon, as the King of the Newbies, here; but after browsing these boards for a while I've dismally failed to find any instances of humor. This is very sad... no pun intended.

WARNING:
I was just listening to the radio, and there's a storm warning for tomorrow Sunday here in Montreal. Must be serious, alright; they are advicing people to stock up on food. This is the first time I hear such advice on radio, ever. Storms here have a nasty habit of downing power lines, so I might end up being off-line for as long as nature and Hydro Quebec might conspire to determine. Just so ya all know I haven't died... hopefully.
(I think I should buy a couple of dogs for warmth, too... --I've electric heating.)

UPDATE:
I've just received an email turning down my application for Editor.
I have really no words to express how little I think of this organization, in light of the fact that a reason for refusal is not given.
No, a list of possible reasons does not do. I don't care what standard justifications you're going to give me; so don't even
bother. Organized unaccountability is to unaccountability what organized crime is to crime. Lucky for me, I was really not sure
I even wanted to be an Editor. Now I know I don't, and exactly why. To be part of this organization would, in a way, implicitly
condone its entrenched uncivilized, though perhaps not outright unethical, behaviors such as never justifying its descisions.
Go ahead and refuse my url too; I consider myself figuratively "at war" with DMOZ, anyways. Namely, I will let pass no opportunity
to publically denounce the way it operates.

EDIT:
How does one remove oneself from membership in this forum?

I've just received an email turning down my application for Editor.

Click to expand...

Given the poor understanding that you have demonstrated in your posts of DMOZ, that is a good decision.

Given that brown-nosers thrive in totalitarian regimes, you un-enlightening post is brilliant, in a morbid kind of way.

Given how you have reacted to not being acceptable as an editor, your response clearly show that you are exactly what the project does not need. The meta editor clearly made a correct decision. Now you are just behaving like a little boy who lost the football game and now wants to take the ball home, otherwise why would you say this:

I consider myself figuratively "at war" with DMOZ, anyways. Namely, I will let pass no opportunity
to publically denounce the way it operates

Click to expand...

I said that's what I intend to do because that's what I intend to do, and I've already started, fyi; take a look at the Comments section in Wikipedia's entry on DMOZ, near the bottom of the file.

Maybe you can't read English. Most can't write it; specially around these parts, so it's not a big handicap, granted; but what I said I deplore about the rejection is the lack of accountability. No name of who reviewed my application, no reason given. And that is what I'm going to tirelessly tell the world. This Open Directory Project is open only in name. All decisions are done behind closed doors, anonymously, and unaccountably; a despicable practice that makes DMOZ the worst shame I can think of at the moment, in the Internet world.

Not to speak of soul-less brown nosers lurking around and contributing nothing useful, but trying to score a first bite to prove their bravery to the rest of the pack. Yeah, bring it on, try a third time... What happened? Pack hunting in human society is not as easy as it was in your last incarnation? Hey, don't feel bad; there's always a first time...

in light of the fact that a reason for refusal is not given.
No, a list of possible reasons does not do.

Click to expand...

The editor application system is the only way we have to screen new editors. From this we need to get an idea of how good an editor the applicant is likely to be. Good traits include honesty, integrity, the ability to read and apply instructions / guidelines, patience, and the ability to accept constructive criticism and learn from mistakes. Being able to work out what was wrong with the first application from the list of common reasons given would be a very good demonstration of several key traits that a good editor would possess. Being unable to do so, well...

but what I said I deplore about the rejection is the lack of accountability. No name of who reviewed my application, no reason given.

Click to expand...

When I was a new meta editor, I used to give my name and e-mail address when I rejected editor applications, so that the person could contact me if they had any questions. That stopped pretty quickly after the first couple of abusive rantings I received from a couple of those applicants. Very rarely now would I ever give out my contact details with a rejected application, and I expect that most meta editors are of a similar mind.

And that is what I'm going to tirelessly tell the world.

Click to expand...

Think about this for a second. If all it took to turn you into a vehement ODP hater was a single rejected editor application, do you really think you should become an editor? (I say that just based on what you wrote here -- I've never seen your application and so can't comment on what you wrote there.) I wonder why you even bothered applying if that was where your mindset was taking you. You had to have been already leaning quite strongly in the direction of "ODP Hater" even then. Surely that wouldn't be compatible with being an editor, would it?

This Open Directory Project is open only in name. All decisions are done behind closed doors, anonymously, and unaccountably; a despicable practice that makes DMOZ the worst shame I can think of at the moment, in the Internet world.

Click to expand...

If you'd read more here, you'd have known all of that already -- you're not the first person to be upset by the way the ODP operates. But you're wrong that we are not accountable. We are very much accountable to AOL and to the editing community. We are accountable to the public for ensuring that abuse and/or bias is addressed as soon as it is discovered and for ensuring that we continue to help the directory grow and improve. Any public anonymity is for the personal safety of the editors involved -- too many editors have been the targets of harassment, both online and physically, for it to have been any other way. Could that change in the future? Sure. Nothing is written in stone. But it's unlikely that the ODP would ever operate like Wikipedia (and keep in mind that even Wikipedia has places for non-public discussions).

chaos127 said:

The editor application system is the only way we have to screen new editors.

Click to expand...

Is it? Well, if that's a problem, then fix it.

From this we need to get an idea of how good an editor the applicant is likely to be. Good traits include honesty, integrity, the ability to read and apply instructions / guidelines, patience, and the ability to accept constructive criticism and learn from mistakes.

Click to expand...

Seems like a awfully long list of attributes you guys are able to evaluate from an application form that doesn't take 5 minutes to fill-out. Either you're all geniuses or you're dreaming in Technicolor. I'd lean towards the latter, specially when some of the application's questions are so sloppily and ambiguously written... They don't seem like the work of a genius but rather of people who barely made the grades through high school.

"motsa" said:

When I was a new meta editor, I used to give my name and e-mail address when I rejected editor applications, so that the person could contact me if they had any questions. That stopped pretty quickly after the first couple of abusive rantings I received from a couple of those applicants. Very rarely now would I ever give out my contact details with a rejected application, and I expect that most meta editors are of a similar mind.

Click to expand...

What would the world be like if everybody decided to act like such cowards? Representatives not giving out business cards, policemen wearing anonymous badges... I've seen personal threats happen in forums from time to time, and what people do is involve the authorities, or whatever it takes, and call it a day, take a couple of days off to calm down, and get back to their feet. And I didn't say I expected to see real name and address, did I? I just said "a name"; namely a handle, like "Monkhouse" or "Motsa"; --i.e.: some means to identify the maker of a decision that one can message if something needs clarification. I have never seen an organization having official policies embodying such degree of cowardice as this; and I suspect the alleged cowardice is merely a cover for corruption. I'm positive that the reason for my refusal was the fact that I criticized the management in this thread. You only have to look around a bit in the net to discover that Editors, too, have been fired for criticizing the management. This being so, you'd much less accept a new editor who's already criticizing management before acceptance. This is plain and obvious. It's all over the net; and apparently, when an Editor is being investigated, they don't even know it either; and when fired, they are not given a reason either. Apparently, everything in this "organization" is done obscurely, cowardly, despotically, un-accountably...

If all it took to turn you into a vehement ODP hater...

Click to expand...

You think about this: Who spoke of "hate" first?; and how... --never mind why-- could one hate a mere acronym, in the first place? I had a better impression of you, Motsa, from previous posts than I do now. The rest of your post is good all techniques of twisting the meaning of what one says, putting words in one's mouth, and such standard dialectic techniques as lawers use in court every day to make witnesses appear to be saying the opposite of what they wanted to say, simply by being forced to answer a string of questions yes or no, none of which can strictly be answered yes or no.

"...Accountable to AOL"... Is that a joke? Of course you'd have to be accountable to the company that owns you; and you know perfectly well that's not the kind of "accountability" I was referring to.

We are accountable to the public for ensuring that abuse and/or bias is addressed as soon as it is discovered...

Click to expand...

The good old "self-policing" falacy... How can the public verify that it is true that you do ensure whatever you say you do ensure, when all your policies are there to create obscurity and intractability? We're just supposed to trust your word? Let me break it to you, that, after a bit of digging around, it becomes clear that the ODP gambled and lost the public's trust on many occasions already.

Any public anonymity is for the personal safety of the editors ...involved

Click to expand...

Like I said, this is just policies to enable complete unaccountability and totalitarianism, under a guise of cowardice.

And on that snarky note, it's clear there's no point in continuing this conversation. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Feel free to continue sharing them at Wikipedia or wherever else you'd like to, but we're done here.

Well, if that's a problem, then fix it.

Click to expand...

I don't think I said anywhere that it is a problem. But if it is, then rest-assured that editors would already be thinking about ways to improve it...

from an application form that doesn't take 5 minutes to fill out

Click to expand...

It may only take five minutes of time to do the actual filling out, but unless you've spent considerably longer reading about the project, reading the instructions, finding a suitable category, finding suitable example sites, it's likely to be very obvious to the reviewer.

some means to identify the maker of a decision that one can message if something needs clarification

Click to expand...

Unfortunately a few bad experiences have spoilt things for everyone else. The choice is simple, allow metas to send anonymous replies when rejecting applications or don't have those applications processed anywhere near as quickly (since far fewer would be prepared to do reviews). Which would you prefer? The relevant information is available to those who need to see it in order to be able to conduct any investigations that are required. And the appropriate channels to report any suspicious activity are already available.

I'm positive that the reason for the refusal was the fact that I criticized the management in this thread

Click to expand...

I don't see how you can possibly come to such a conclusion at all. You have no idea how many metas are actively viewing editing applications, or how many are likely to have read your posts here. Without that information you clearly cannot say anything with positivity.

How can the public verify that it is true that you do ensure whatever you say you do, when all your policies are there to create obscurity and intractability?

Click to expand...

Even if it was best be in the interests of the project to do so (which I don't think it would be), I'm afriad I don't see any obligation on the ODP to allow public be able to very such things.

<added>Looks like this thread has been locked while I was writing this. I can't say I disagree with that decision, as you're comments weren't exactly constructive...</added>