Picture, if you will, a library operated by volunteers for the benefit of the public. That's us.
Now envision it as having two large sections. The front room, open to the public, has over four million works organized and evaluated for relevance. In the back room we do that sorting, poring over thousands of works every day that we've found in various places, figuring out where to list them.
In October, disaster struck. The back room was trashed, much of our work in progress was lost, some records of works we've found were scrambled, others were nowhere to be seen. It was so bad we weren't even allowed in the building for many weeks while our corporate sponsor worked to put the infrastructure back in order.
Now, let's think about priorities.
First, the public. They are, after all, who we're doing this for in the first place. We had that front room open for their use in less than two days.
Next, the volunteers. We were locked out for six weeks. Some of us bemoaned the time it took, some were grateful for the effort our sponsor was exerting on our behalf. Most of us managed to hold both of those positions at once.
Anyway, we're back in now. It's still a bit of a mess, a lot of things that we used to be able to do easily are difficult, and there's a lot of cleaning up to do. We're working on it.
The above is our core functionality. First and foremost: the users. Next, the things our editors need to do our stuff.
There's also some peripheral stuff we're working on restoring. There are some links at the top of each category. Think of them as slots next to the shelf in which the public we serve is invited to put messages for us. At the time of this writing, none of these are working yet.
become an editor is a really important one for us. Users who like what we do and want to help are invited to offer that help here, with a brief description of who they are and what they'll do.
report abuse/spam is just as important. Sadly, not everybody who volunteers really has our users' interests in mind. The real users can help us weed out those few bad apples.
update listing (The analogy gets a little thin here. In a brick-and-mortar library the content of the books doesn't change while they're on the shelf.) This is where you let us know that something no longer belongs where we've got it, or perhaps that its description needs to be updated.
suggest URL is our suggestion box. Users who run across a site they think we should list use this. Despite being nearly overwhelmed with spam and self-interest, it still often contains useful ideas. So, yes we'll get it working in the order that its imporance to us merits. But it sure isn't our highest priority.
Now envision it as having two large sections. The front room, open to the public, has over four million works organized and evaluated for relevance. In the back room we do that sorting, poring over thousands of works every day that we've found in various places, figuring out where to list them.
In October, disaster struck. The back room was trashed, much of our work in progress was lost, some records of works we've found were scrambled, others were nowhere to be seen. It was so bad we weren't even allowed in the building for many weeks while our corporate sponsor worked to put the infrastructure back in order.
Now, let's think about priorities.
First, the public. They are, after all, who we're doing this for in the first place. We had that front room open for their use in less than two days.
Next, the volunteers. We were locked out for six weeks. Some of us bemoaned the time it took, some were grateful for the effort our sponsor was exerting on our behalf. Most of us managed to hold both of those positions at once.
Anyway, we're back in now. It's still a bit of a mess, a lot of things that we used to be able to do easily are difficult, and there's a lot of cleaning up to do. We're working on it.
The above is our core functionality. First and foremost: the users. Next, the things our editors need to do our stuff.
There's also some peripheral stuff we're working on restoring. There are some links at the top of each category. Think of them as slots next to the shelf in which the public we serve is invited to put messages for us. At the time of this writing, none of these are working yet.
become an editor is a really important one for us. Users who like what we do and want to help are invited to offer that help here, with a brief description of who they are and what they'll do.
report abuse/spam is just as important. Sadly, not everybody who volunteers really has our users' interests in mind. The real users can help us weed out those few bad apples.
update listing (The analogy gets a little thin here. In a brick-and-mortar library the content of the books doesn't change while they're on the shelf.) This is where you let us know that something no longer belongs where we've got it, or perhaps that its description needs to be updated.
suggest URL is our suggestion box. Users who run across a site they think we should list use this. Despite being nearly overwhelmed with spam and self-interest, it still often contains useful ideas. So, yes we'll get it working in the order that its imporance to us merits. But it sure isn't our highest priority.