Where are the editors?

I have nothing against members of the community coming up with ways of making editing more enjoyable (with the motive of making it more frequent). That happens already, in some of the ways you suggest and in others you haven't imagined.

But it is important to remember that these incentives will be aimed at getting people more active at reviewing sites that surfers think should be reviewed -- and this will not necessarily serve any particular webmaster's purposes. An incentive to serve a particular webmaster's purpose, is called a "bribe", the offerer receives the disincentive of a permanent place on the Hall of Unspeakably Unlistable Shame, and the recipient receives the disincentive of removal of editing privileges.

In practice, this disincentivizes many incentivatory schemes proposed from outside.

What would motivate me to edit more would be great, creative, one of a kind type sites that are nice and clean looking, get right to the point, and have something unique to offer or say, no matter how simple and unsophisticated they might be in design.

What unmotivates me is all the cookie cutter garbage sites, with either the same old thing on them, or so much unclear information on them that's it's a real chore to find any kind of useful honest nuggets of information.

Professional webmasters have about as much creativity as my banker. And then, there's all these sweethearts that go to great lengths to try and hide their real locations, so they can get listed where they don't belong. I despise dishonesty.

Some of the most enjoyable sites I've seen have been created by amateurs. No unneccessary, useless information, just charming, innovative sites that tell you exactly what it is you want to know, without a lot excessive hype, or sticking to "industry standards" for website building.

So, that's what would motivate me more, more originality in sites, more honesty, and less meaningless junk, .

Since you said that you're open to suggestion of how the editor should be 'rewarded'. I have a suggestion to introduce 'points' for editors (that appears anywhere the editor name/nick does). It works well for some online experts forums, the experts are motivated to give right answers to gain points.
How can it be fair to the site owners? The points should be given in proportion to the importance of the site being reviewed, we can consider that higher google page rank is more important than the lower ones. This way, the editors will prioritize more important sites, which consequently deserve to be reviewed first to be listed first.
I am a site owner who failed to get my site listed in the past one year. I somehow feel that it's not very fair if dmoz can list my competitors and can't list mine, but again I have no one to blame as editors are all volunteers.
I recognize that it's in no way a favoritism, but purely lack of editors in the category that i'm applying to, but I was rejected when I applied to become an editor of the category even though the category is relatively small.
DMOZ is a great mission with great people involved. It's unfortunate that some people are abusing it that left it in the state it is now.

I think you've it on the fundamental problem with pursuing "rewards" -- who decides what's worth rewarding?

I'm not sure you've thought out the ramifications, though. Is what you really want an official announcement to the ODP community that looking through Google for high-ranking sites is better than looking for relevant sites? And -- speaking as to a site suggestor, is it really better for us to look in Google than to look at suggested sites?

Is it fair to systematically bias the system against new sites that haven't had time to develop page rank, in favor of heavily SEO'ed sites?

In a word, is it fair to set up ANY arbritrary mechanical irrelevant quantum as a control over human judgment of human achievement?

Well, a challenge from an adherent of another religion often helps to clarify one's own thoughts. It's clear enough to an editor that what you propose is very far from the ODP spirit. But what would the ODP spirit be like? If one thinks generally meaningless statistics help motivate people (and I don't doubt they sometimes do), what would the cooperating-volunteer-community approach be?

Certainly, in opposition to "setting goals for the editors" it would be something like "helping editors to create, clarify, achieve, and celebrate their own goals" -- by providing tools, suggestions, and social support"

So, how do you do that? I can think of one or two things that have been done that count as partial answers to that question. But we could very likely do better.

Thank you for the reply. I take this as a constructive conversation/discussion towards a better dmoz. Please tell me if you think otherwise and think that this is waste of time.

In my opinion the most difficult part is to get the right editor with the right ODP spirit. There are many editors who's serving this 'unpaid job' with passion relentlessly without looking for rewards whatsoever, but... they are minorities of the editors community... The biggest pool of editors are being editor for the sake of having their site listed, they are sleeping editors who leave many site owners of relevant contents waiting endlessly and feeling lost. That is not the spirit of ODP i believe. Nobody is to blame, the editors are selected based on their linguistic skill and sample site, nobody interviewed them. But i don't think you can "help THOSE editors to create, clarify, achieve, and celebrate their own goals". They came with different motive at the beginning.
How to address this issue? penalize those sleeping editors by removing them from being editor? They wouldn't mind, they have had their site(s) listed, and dmoz can't remove the sites they listed together with them. We can only motivate them (the sleeping eidtors) to do more.
Pardon me for being direct, let me say it again, please let me know if you think that this discussion is meaningless and a waste of time.

If an editor does no editing within a 4 month period, they automatically time out, simonjq. Removing them sooner would give you the same end result, no resident editor in that category. Keeping them there might spark an interest in editing for them.

No editor owns a category, they just have permission to edit there. Many other editors can and do edit in that category, whether it has a named resident editor or not.

In other words, just because there is a named resident editor in a category, it doesn't block other editors, with higher editing permissions, from editing in that category also.

I have permission to edit in thousands of categories, as many other editors do.

I have permission to edit in thousands of categories, as many other editors do.

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Maybe thousands of editors like you, but there are millions of sites to be reviewed. The key question is really how to find mooooore editors with the right spirit. Wish you guys get the editor application back up again soon.
Salute for taking dmoz odp to where it is right now.
Good luck in facing mountains of challenges!

Thank you, simonjq, we would like more honest editors, too, but, we also need to keep any of the wolves out there from coming in and trashing the hard work that has been done.

Simon does has one good point that I share in my original suggestion. ODP's mission is to create a human-edited directory of quality websites. This is an excellent mission. Unfortunately, any online system with much human interference is going to be of higher quality, but lower productivity, than one that is dynamically moderated.

Offering an incentive program of some kind was merely a suggestion. The landscape of this suggestion is HOW to get more editors and motivate editors to be more active. Editor count and activity is an issue because, like Simon said, webmasters (like he and I) are waiting for well over a year and never getting listed. I can imagine many of those websites that wait and wait and never get listed are quality websites that simply didn't get reviewed.

Anyway, it's the landscape we should focus on. How does ODP get more editors and in what ways can they be motivated to be more active?

More quality editors are always welcome but an incentive program would not be a solution as this will attract the wrong kind of people.

Editor count and activity is an issue because, like Simon said, webmasters (like he and I) are waiting for well over a year and never getting listed.

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If editor count and activity is an issue it certainly is not related to the time webmasters are waiting on a service DMOZ does not provide.

Anyway, it's the landscape we should focus on. How does ODP get more editors and in what ways can they be motivated to be more active?

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That's a perfectly legitimate question, Tanoro. Part of the answer is to make normal websurfers more aware of this particular site, more aware of what the ODP is and what it's real goal is, and being more proactive in recruiting honest people to join us.

One of the biggest problems is determining who the honest, unbiased applicants are, and who are trying to join for their own self interest reasons.

I'm sure you wouldn't want us to bring in a dishonest competitor of yours who then proceeded to start deleting all of the sites you've created and gotten listed in the Directory, so, protecting your interests, as well as our own interests is important.

We're really choosing quality over speed. Yes, an automated system would be perhaps faster (if that's what we wanted), but then the Directory would look like your mailbox, without spam protection, hundreds of garbage sites to wade through.

Machines are made to order, for finding ways to get around them, because they can't think, reason, or judge what they're seeing, the way a human editor can, and a human editor is unpredictable, unlike an automated system.

In my opinion, the hatred we get from SEOs and webmasters stems from the fact that there are no set rules or conditions that they can work to their advantage and it frustrates them to no end that they don't have a solid framework to work within, no way to predict results, or control things.

Human editing is all so very haphazard and unpredictable. They cannot control the freedoms that we have as editors, that's not power trips, it's freedoms.

The freedom to work when and wherever we have the editing permissions to work, freedom to make judgements and ask other editors for advice, freedom to discuss ODP issues and come to an agreement, freedom to choose the type of jobs we want to concentrate on, freedom to disagree with each other and correct each other, many freedoms.

The reason we have these freedoms is based on trust, and our willingness to give without expecting any kind of payment in return, not even a thank you.

An editor has to find his own reward within himself, payment of any kind, whether in the form of money or incentives is a slap in the face to that personal reward within us, .

>Unfortunately, any online system with much human interference is going to be of higher quality, but lower productivity, than one that is dynamically moderated.

True. I should think it was obvious also, but I'm always amazed how many people miss it. So the usual run of suggestions from webmasters goes like "appoint me Commissar and I'll spend at least four hours a day dreaming up idiotic rules having nothing to do with directory quality or usefulness, to reduce editor productivity and increase editor frustration. This will cause all volunteers everywhere to quit their jobs, abandon their families, drop their hobbies, and spend 24 hours a day assiduously reviewing websites containing Artikuls on How YOU can Use VIAGRA to Improve Your Social Life, or How Many Cities You can Travel To, that Have Everything -- specifically Shopping And A Major-League Pro Sports Venue."

>Editor count and activity is an issue because, like Simon said, webmasters (like he and I) are waiting for well over a year and never getting listed.

Well, remember, keep this in context. Millions of sites have been waiting well over a year (millions of which never WILL be listed, and millions of which ARE listable). The trick is, as always, focusing on the latter category.

So it's not just editor number. It's finding people with the right attitude, who aren't already focusing on some of the many OTHER opportunities to do some kind of public service.

Can you ODP team toy with this idea:
How about make it possible for an editor (or even compulsory) to recruit another editor in order to retain the editor status over period of time, say every year? The selection criteria should still be in place, the target is to recruit a qualified editor, not just any editor.
An editor that is recruited by another qualified editor is more likely to have right attitude. Why? If it is merely for listing his/her own site, he could have asked his/her contact who's already an editor, to add his/her site into odp. If this new editor (recruited by another editor) is willing to become an editor, then most likely he has the right reason to become one.

Some editors already do this.

As has already been explained, this is a voluntary organisation. Beyond making at least one edit every 120 days, there is no compulsion to do anything. Nor is there ever likely to be .

or even compulsory

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So if an editor fails to recruit, he is dismissed?

How does ODP get more editors

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Everyone would like there to be more editors but getting more editors will not solve the problem of an individual webmaster hoping to get their site listed in something less than geological time.

Our main problem is reaching the thousands of people in the 'communities' from whom we would like to draw editors. A case in point is me - a folk-dancer who joined to improve the folk-dancing area. I stumbled across the ODP through this forum and decided to sign up. I could limit myself to just folk-dancing, and thus any incentives etc would only serve to benefit 'my' community.

As a folk-dancer, I might feel that if there are no (say) pagans interested in developing 'pagan' cats, then the 'pagan' cats are adequately looked after. Rather harsh but the way of the world.

However there is nothing to stop a 'pagan' webmaster telling their community all about us in the hope of generating some interest and improving the number of 'pagan' editors. There is nothing to stop them from keeping an eye on 'pagan' categories once every few months to give updates on bad or hijacked links. And this applies to any area of the directory where someone feels that the ODP could be improved but have not the time or inclination to do so themselves.

This is perhaps a more realistic suggestion than trying to squeeze more edits out of existing editors or us merely telling you to become an editor.

regards

PS Become an editor!

Alright, suggestions have been made to help improve the speed and quality of ODP by increasing the number of editors and providing some sort of incentive for current editors to be more active.

You guys don't seem to like these ideas. Therefore, you tell us what you think would help improve ODP's ability to process websites in what could be considered "timely." By making these suggestions, even the bad ones, we are exploring ideas to improve ODP. Even a bad idea may inspire a good one. Let us all make such suggestions and see what we can come up with.

We are all aware that editors are voluntary and don't have to do anything if they so choose. Therefore, how does one improve the speed and quality of a website that is operated by volunteers?

That's easy, Tanoro.

Submit site suggestions with a proper, ODP Guidelines compliant Title and Description.

Don't submit mirrors and redirects in order to get the same site listed multiple times.

Don't send site suggestions stuffed full of keyword lists, and sales hype.

Don't submit site suggestions multiple times to the same or different categories.

Don't try to hide your real location, put the business address on the site.

Don't submit to the wrong category, because that's where you want to be.

Don't ask for a site update that doesn't comply with our Guidelines.

Those will do as starters, . If we don't have to do unnecessary detective work, we can spend more time clicking the ADD button. The public has access to all of the editing Guidelines that we edit by.

And ..... develop an understanding of timeliness from the editors point of view.

If I want to work in Manhattan, Kansas, then a timely suggestion would be one that is there before I want to work on that category. Otherwise I go looking elsewhere for listings to build up the Manhattan categories - like Chamber members, billboard listings, flyers, Google, etc. Any listings that I add to the directory are timely, because they were done when I decided they needed to be done and not a moment later. (Unless someone else decided to work in Manhattan before I got there - then they'd be listed earlier).

I'll add another one:

Don't expect us to be a listing service. We're a group of volunteers building a directory. While we do accept suggestions, we've never claimed to act as a listing service, free or otherwise.

Oh, and if you could eliminate all the spammers who try to overwhelm categories with useless junk, I'd be thrilled!

How about make it possible for an editor (or even compulsory) to recruit another editor in order to retain the editor status over period of time, say every year?

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Oh, great, turn the ODP into Amway.

Thanks but no thanks.