Status of Editor Application - jameskal

Dear Senior Editor:

I had applied to be an editor for the category http://dmoz.org/Regional/Asia/India/Kerala/Localities/Kochi/Travel_and_Tourism/ (39) and the same was acknowledged by ODP on 10th Oct 2002. However, I have not heard from ODP since then. What could be the present status ?

Regards.

No, sorry it appears your applications has been rejected. There are no applications older than 2003 in the queue. Applications are not saved, so I can't give you any details on why your application was rejected, nor why you didn't receive notice.

You're more than welcome to apply again. Try reading the editing guidelines, they may help: http://dmoz.org/guidelines/

Good luck, I hope things turn out better for you next time. <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" />

Thanks Enarra, for the info. I understand. Ok, I will try again. Some clue as to why it was rejected earlier would have been helpful when re-applying.

BTW, can I apply for more than one category at the same time ?

The guidelines require that an editor will have to edit at least one site in four months, to continue to be an editor. If there are no submissions in the category within this four months or eight months, then what happens ?

Thanks.

Some clue as to why it was rejected earlier would have been helpful when re-applying.

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I know, but there is nothing I can do, I can't even track down which meta handled the application. All the advice I can give is to fill out the application completely, be honest, read the guidelines for the descriptions, and check your spelling and grammer. We don't expect new editors to be perfect, we're just looking for honest people who have the potential to be good editors. <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" />

BTW, can I apply for more than one category at the same time ?

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Nope, just one.

The guidelines require that an editor will have to edit at least one site in four months, to continue to be an editor. If there are no submissions in the category within this four months or eight months, then what happens ?

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You can go out and search for sites to add on your own. Try the phone book, Google, Yahoo, and other search engines. We don't just list submitted sites, but add our own content too. <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" />

Once you've gotten some experience you can apply for additional categories. There is also a category given to every editor called Bookmarks where you can pretty much do whatever editing you want.

It would have to be a cat with a really narrow focus that finding one acceptable site to add every 4 months wouldn't be possible. Also, isn't a rejection an edit? Odds are in a 4 month period just about any cat will get spammed once. And, you could always try applying for some other dinky cat where you know that there are a number of worthwhile sites that hadn't been added yet.

You can go out and search for sites to add on your own. Try the phone book, Google, Yahoo, and other search engines. We don't just list submitted sites, but add our own content too.

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Well, that means an editor can make some really positive contribution to ODP. That is great.

Thanks Enarra. Will re-apply and see.

Regards.

Rfgdxm, you are right. I posted that question because I thought an editor could pick up a site only from an ODP queue. Enarra has clarified that it need not always be so. Therefore, I suppose editors won't have to be idle for too long. Regards.

Not only can editors add sites on their own, it would be technically impossible to stop this. If an editor could only add sites from the queue, what would stop the editor from just using the Anonymizer and adding the site to the queue from the public submission form, and then approving it? *Anyone* can submit a site to the ODP.

Also, if finding sites to add to avoid timing out as an editor were ever an issue, an excellent source to find appropriate sites are the other major directories, and specialized directories for the topic of the cat. Almost surely there will be at least one worthwhile site that wasn't already in the ODP that would be listed in one of these directories.

Yes, I fully agree and thanks for the suggestions. Perhaps, this is also a good method to populate lean cats, which is good for all.

"There is also a category given to every editor called Bookmarks where you can pretty much do whatever editing you want."

Yes - but as the bookmarks are part of the Open Directory the same rules apply. If you spammed/ keyword stuffed etc hundreds of bookmark pages some metas wouldn't look very favourably upon you. People don't seem to realise that the rules apply to bookmark pages too. They aren't there to "do whatever editing you want" - do that on your own homepage....

You'll notice that the person that said an editor's Bookmarks are a place "where you can pretty much do whatever editing you want", is a meta editor, and she was correct.

The bookmarks are often referred to as "an editor's playground". In them you can add your own sites, with glowing descriptions, you can cool your sites, and you can collect all your favourite sites in a subcategory called ThE_BEst_SiGHts_On_tHe_PLanET if you really want to. No one will worry about it. If you created a subcategory called Really_Crappy_Companies and listed all your competitors in there, you might raise a few eyebrows, but you'd be more likely to be sued by one of the companies than slapped by a meta. <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" />

The bookmarks are not a propagated part of the directory. They do not appear in the RDF dumps, which is the way in which other directories and search engines use our data. Because they are not part of the officially distributed directory, they are not subject to the same rules.


I realise that in the first posting jameskal says that he received an acknowledgement, but a common reason for not receiving an accept/reject message from the ODP is email problems. Hotmail is particularly prone to routing ODP messages to the 'junk mail' folder, and many other free or cheap email systems lose messages when disk quotas are exceeded. Several editors have complained in the internal forums that they are being ignored, only to discover that their ISP had installed spam filters that were junking ODP feedback messages without telling them. For technical reasons ODP feedback messages (but not the acknowlegement message) have to be constructed in a way that looks suspicious to spam filters. If the person sending the feedback has included a sample bad description saying "Buy! buy! buy! Best FREE stuff on the net!!!!", then the spam filters are bound to be triggered.

It's probably too late for you to check back through your mail now, but be aware of this after submitting your next application, and check what is being dropped by spam filters or over-zealous ISPs.

Right. Bookmarks are commonly used by editors for sites they aren't sure are suitable to be added to the ODP. Thus if an editor found a site that looked promising, but still hadn't been checked out thoroughly, bookmarks would be the place for it. Also, an editor with large cat space might put a site he found in the bookmark Really_Great_Sites if it was one he absolutely wanted to add, but hadn't figured out exactly what cat it should be listed in yet.

The point of editor bookmarks categories here isn't so much what you can do in them, but how you can use them to build the Directory while waiting for permission to edit real categories.

If you are trying to convince a meta-editor that you are just the editor the Widgets/Chiral/Handcrafted/ category needs, then a WCH subcategory in your bookmarks -- containing every specialist craftsman's website that you could find in Google, etc., with good titles and descriptions -- is the best evidence you could possibly have. It is as if you walked into a potential employer and handed over a portfolio, saying "If I'd been working for you for the last month, this is what I'd have done."

It's probably too late for you to check back through your mail now, but be aware of this after submitting your next application, and check what is being dropped by spam filters or over-zealous ISPs.

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dfy, I do not use my hotmail account for anything serious. So it is not likely that the ODP mail has gone in there. I am not aware of any spam filters used by my ISPs, because I still get a lot of junk mail. Only possibility is that they are using wrong filters. I will check with them.

I understand that usually when an application is rejected, the reasons are given. That would have been very helpful. In non-ODP world, I am an editor of three travel-related publications for three different localities, in three different countries. I know the localities and the people there well enough to do a good job. However, I had applied for only one locality, my home town. I had written all about it in my application. Now, I am worried and confused because I do not know if that was a qualification or disqualification to be an ODP editor. I also do a lot of site-reviewing in connection with my Internet work. With all that, I thought I was a custom-made fit for an ODP Editor. Evidently, the Meta who scrutinised my application did not think so ! It could have been something small or big, but without any idea of what went wrong, I am still in the dark.

If, like the Editor log-in, Editor-applicants could also log in and check their status and scores online, perhaps this would have been a little more easier to handle.

Even if, ultimately, I don't become an editor, all your feedback gives me plenty of ideas. Thanks to all of you.

One thing I can say with certainty is that we are quite happy to have people applying to become an editor for their home town category. Who knows the businesses in a specific town better than someone that lives there. Assuming you were rejected, it wasn't for that reason.

I say "assuming you were rejcted" because you might not have been. The email problem has been known to catch out more than a couple of editors. You'd be surprised at the number of people that apply, get approved, and then never log in. We can only assume these people have had their acceptance email dropped by spam filters. <img src="/images/icons/frown.gif" alt="" />

dfy, may I ask why, with so much of infrastructure available, ODP is leaving such important things to the mercy of others (I mean, the ISPs)? Registration and log-in for editor-applicants will reduce this problem considerably.

ODP wants titles/descriptions of 3 sites to be submitted while applying. Having gone through this forum quite a bit, I think most of the applicants get rejected first time, for one reason or the other. Then what happens to those sites ? I assume they will not be considered for inclusion. In that case, isn't this all a colossal waste of person-hours ? And that too, while ODP has a growing list of unreviewed submissions ?

Instead, why not allot one site (at a time) from the queue to an applicant, get his review within a stipulated time-frame, get it scored by one meta, and post his scores in his online account ? If his score is not good enough (borderline), ask the applicant to re-review. Give him two more sites from the queue, one after the other, follow the same procedure, but get it scored by different metas. (The computer decides which meta will score which applicant's review without duplication). I assume this is all done electronically and therefore, after the 3rd site, the computer will decide if the applicant has scored enough to be accepted or not, and posts the applicant's account accordingly. This will greatly, (1) reduce the chances of human bias by any one or more meta(s)(or others); (2) reduce the chances of an applicant messing up any category; and (3) at the same time reduce the number of un-reviewed submissions atleast by three for every person accepted. Even if the applicant is rejected, if 1 or 2 reviews are acceptable, they can be included in ODP. This is something like an on-the-job selection and I feel there is a lot of difference between reviewing to apply and reviewing to retain. This will increase the chances of getting good editors who are serious about what they do. Incidentally, this will also save a lot of time of the metas and other editors who have to post over and over about the same matter in reply to different posts.

After going through hundreds of posts in this forum, I got a feeling that metas and other editors are working under severe pressure. Hefty workload and short time is a surely a deadly combination. Some stress is understandable, since this is more or less like a second full time job. Kudos to all of you, but, I don't understand the need for creating such un-necessary pressure chambers around the metas and other editors.

Some of the posts were very apologetic about the whole situation. In one post, it was said that the "ODP Staff" everyone is referring to is actually just one person. (There is a 2nd person who is more of a techie maintaining the systems). That means all the thorough discussions metas and others have with the ODP Staff is actually limited to discussions with one single individual. If metas are under so much pressure, you can imagine the state of that single individual. When people are working under such heavy pressure, I would not be surprised if many things (even important ones) are done or left undone, correctly or incorrectly, depending on the mood of the day. After all everything is voluntary and therefore pushing anyone too much is not likely to bring in the desired results. At the same time, since most of the voluntary editors are professionals in some field, lack of professionalism in their editing and related work cannot be accepted in toto.

Needless to say, ODP has to gear up to clear the backlog in a short time. (I read it is somewhere around half a million !!) It is not a quality versus quantity situation. At the present rate of domain registrations and ODP backlog, if something is not done to clear the backlog in short time, after some time ODP will be listing only a small fraction of all the registered domains. With so much of work already done by so many people for ODP, permitting it to lose its relevance because of a lack of vision or the will to implement it, will indeed be very sad.

&gt;&gt; dfy, may I ask why, with so much of infrastructure available, ODP is leaving such important things to the mercy of others (I mean, the ISPs)? Registration and log-in for editor-applicants will reduce this problem considerably. &lt;&lt;

As I say, for technical reasons editor feedback messages *have* to be constructed in a way that looks suspicious to spam filters. We can't help it if ISPs add spam filtering software, set it up badly, and then fail to tell their users about it. We'd love to fix the problem, but it's not at our end, so nothing can be done.

As you seem to be aware, staff at dmoz.org consists of two people. One of them spends all of his time reading emails from people threatening to sue him, and the other spends all of her time improving the editor's side of the ODP, and fixing things when they break. Your idea has some good points, but it would require a massive amount of programming. Our staff techie is more than capable of doing the job, but there are far more important things to be done first.

jameskal - you have some good ideas, and I'm sure they will go into the looonnnngggg list of suggested improvements. (Improving the ODP is a favorite editor topic. <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" /> ) However, as has been said before, our one programmer already has a lot of other higher priority stuff and unfortunately cannot work some of the nifty ideas.

&gt;&gt;ODP has to gear up to clear the backlog in a short time&lt;&lt;
A common mis-perception is that dealing with unreviewed is the main thing to be done. It's not at all - editors spend a lot of time ensuring quality of existing listings, improving ontology and finding sites on their own. Yes, we'd like to get the unreviewed quantities down, but it isn't the only thing we are focused on.

There is lots of discussion about ODP needing help. Obviously, the most helpful and within current abilities is to become an editor. But for anyone who can't get accepted as an editor or doesn't want to be one, there are still other ways to help. For example, clicking listings to see if the site is still there, doesn't redirect, and hasn't turned into something else. For sites that give an error, there is then research time to see if a new location can be found or if the business/organization is really gone. Problems that are found can then be summarized for a senoir editor to fix. ~Anyone~ can do this, and it really is helpful. When I start working in a category that hasn't been tended in a while, this is the first thing I have to do. What's the point of adding a bunch of good listings if half the ones there are bad or misplaced? If someone had already verified what was there, I could spend more time on listing unrevieweds.

OK - that was longer than I intended. <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" alt="" /> Maybe someone can build on this idea.

&gt;&gt; As I say, for technical reasons editor feedback messages *have* to be constructed in a way that looks suspicious to spam filters. We can't help it if ISPs add spam filtering software, set it up badly, and then fail to tell their users about it. We'd love to fix the problem, but it's not at our end, so nothing can be done.&lt;&lt;

dfy, if this "have" thing is mandatory for technical reasons, atleast the applicants should be sent proper guidelines how to work it out with their ISPs. All ISPs are not likely to be aware of ODP's special need to generate spam-like emails. So if proper guidelines are sent to the applicants, they can organise to save their ODP mails. But with log-in for editor-applicants, ODP need not take all that trouble.

&gt;&gt; but it would require a massive amount of programming. Our staff techie is more than capable of doing the job &lt;&lt;

No dfy, it doesn't require all that massive programming. For several reasons. One, this forum is already working well, and so is the editors' forum. Two, most of the editor-applicants are already members of this forum. Three, if registration is mandatory for editor-applicants, as soon as they submit the application, they could be moved to a different section of this forum or the editors' forum or yet another forum, where they have access to only their own accounts/pages.

A little tweaking of the forum's poll feature can convert it into a scoring sheet. Some programming is definitely required, but it is not as massive as you have made it to be. I am sure if your ODP staff is determined, she can finish the job in a couple of days. Actually, there is no urgency as such; it can take months if that is the way you all want it.

&gt;&gt; but there are far more important things to be done first.&lt;&lt;

This is one line that is repeated so many times in various posts by metas and editors. There seems to be a never ending stream of "to be done first" jobs, about which everybody is anxious about. With all that left to be done, where will we have the time to clear the backlog and look for good editors ? If these jobs are so important than the matters of rest-of-the-world, then why don't all of you get together and finish them off first? At the current pace, even if ODP stops inclusion for some time, it wouldn't really matter. But clearing those jobs first could make a lot of difference in the productivity after that clearance.

dfy, I feel it is all a matter of will. I don't know whose will, but some one out there is not too keen to change anything. All because the name is "voluntary"? Otherwise, how can a group of successful people get together and do anything that is less successful? If it was our own bread-winning activity, would we continue to do things the same way ? I guess not.

&gt;&gt; No dfy, it doesn't require all that massive programming. For several reasons. One, this forum is already working well, and so is the editors' forum. &lt;&lt;

True, but irrelevant. This forum is not an official part of the ODP, and is in no way connected to the ODP (ie. there is no data sharing). I believe this forum not only works in a radically different way to the internal forums, but it's written in a different language. I believe that the author of this forum has no knowledge of the coding of the ODP or it's internal forum, and the ODP staff techie has no knowledge or access to this forum's code. No data sharing means that there is no way to tie resource-zone logins with ODP logins.

&gt;&gt; Two, most of the editor-applicants are already members of this forum. &lt;&lt;

I doubt that very much. I don't have access to the new editor applications, but I do have an idea how many people apply, and how many people ask about their applications over here. The numbers applying are orders of magnitude higher than the posts here.

&gt;&gt; Three, if registration is mandatory for editor-applicants, as soon as they submit the application, they could be moved to a different section ... &lt;&lt;

That's possible, but it would involve our techie creating a non-approved-editor section, creating tools to allow non-approved-editors to monitor their status, and checking it all intensively for security flaws. She has far more important things to do before she ever gets time to do that, and even then we might decide that it's just not worth the effort.


&gt;&gt; There seems to be a never ending stream of "to be done first" jobs, about which everybody is anxious about. With all that left to be done, where will we have the time to clear the backlog and look for good editors ? &lt;&lt;

When I say that our staff techie has more important things to do, that's definitely the case. She is the only one that has access to the ODP code, and therefore the only one that can do those jobs. Metas do not have to worry about programming, so they can concentrate on sorting out editor applications, and all the other little things that make the directory work as well as it does.


&gt;&gt; I feel it is all a matter of will &lt;&lt;

I'm afraid not, it's down to resources. AOL/Time Warner are the people that fund us, and even though they are a massive corporation with piles of cash, they're not sufficiently interested in us to give us extra staff members. It took ages to convince them to fork out for a server upgrade, and then the site ground to a halt before anything got done. The problem isn't will, it's simply that our corporate owners can't see the value in what they have.