The Review Process ?

I have a couple general questions regarding the review process:

1.) Are applications sent to one main processing inbox or are they separated out into categories like the directory?

2.) Are the applications reviewed by a meta or catmod that oversees the area of the directory that the applicant has applied for? Or is a meta or catmod responsible for reviewing applications for a set amount of time or number of applications?


How does this work? I have been watching this board and some applications process faster than others, I was wondering why this occurs.

Thanks

Ummm. Ignore this post. It was about reviewing sites, not editor applications. Must read the qustion more closely next time.

No, this is about appling to be an editor. I wanted to know how applications are processed. Not how sites are added to the directory, that question would belong in a different thread and I know how that works.

Thanks

Good questions.

1. Applications are sent to one big pile that can be sorted by date or by category.

2. No meta or catmod is responsible for reviewing any particular applications. Some metas and catmods will review apps in their areas of interest or expertise, and some will just start at the top, bottom, or middle of the list and review, review, review <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" />

No meta or catmod is required to even review applications if they don't feel that it is something that they are comfortable doing. It's a diverse group with multi talents and people tend to do what they do best, or help where they are needed.

I think that some applications are always going to be processed faster than others. I may have free time to do some today, but I can't do most in World areas for languages I don't know, and I usually stick to areas that I am familiar with - but that's just me. If one of us notices that an application has been sitting for a while, we will flag it to someone's attention who can look at it.

People asking for status of their application here are not getting put on the top of the pile. I suspect that someone may be browsing through here and see that there may be an application in an area that they are familiar with and they may go off and process a few applications that happen to include the one that was asked about here. On the other hand someone may see an application request here and will go glance at it and see that it has some problem and may reject it right away. Posting here does not help your chances <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" />

At the moment we're actually down under 100 applications. A whole bunch got processed today.

When you think about it, this works much the same way as any volunteer community (I advisedly avoid the word "organization") would.

Editalls aren't told to edit everywhere: they're told that they are trusted to know where they can edit effectively, and invited to do whatever they are willing.

Metas aren't told what to do either; they're given a list of things they are trusted to do if they are willing and feel capable.

But most editors with more responsibility than time tend to focus somewhere -- either a kind of category, or a kind of editing -- and use other categories or other kinds of editing as a recreational break.

Sometimes several volunteers start a concerted effort to clean up some kind of "backlog", whether it's unreviewed sites in Regional/Mongolia, broken links, spam in Hotel Reservation sites, or editor applications. (Some people enjoy working together like that, and will join most any nearby movement, just for the company. Others are so busy working, they don't even notice when the bandwagon rolls by.)
Sometimes volunteers just pick a little corner to work by themselves in. It may be a corner that has a backlog, or something that piqued their interest yesterday. It may be something that they think is neglected. It may even be triggered by a chance comment in some external forum or other.

People who don't like this mode of operating ... don't become volunteers, or don't stay volunteers very long. And people who do ... don't change their mode of operating when given more responsibility.

<img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" /> Thank you both for explaining the review process so clearly. I understand how it works now.