spectregunner
Member
- Joined
- Jan 23, 2003
- Messages
- 8,768
Where are the editors?
- Thread starter Tanoro
- Start date
Can I apply to be an editor on as many subjects/topics that I choose? Will this improve my chances of becoming an editor? If there is an area that is sorely in need of an editor, then heck, put me on it. I'll gladly donate some of my time, but asking the fox to choose which hen house he wishes to guard is a bit ridiculous.
I'm reasonably well-educated and pushing 50, so I know how to go about researching a subject before proclaiming to be an expert on it. If it's way over my head or of absolutely no interest to me, I can always ask for a different assignment. Just sign me up and you've got yourself another editor.
I'm reasonably well-educated and pushing 50, so I know how to go about researching a subject before proclaiming to be an expert on it. If it's way over my head or of absolutely no interest to me, I can always ask for a different assignment. Just sign me up and you've got yourself another editor.
Initially, no. You can only apply for 1 category as a new editor. That said, once you are an editor you can apply to edit other categories unrelated to the first.
From a practical point of view 2nd and subsequent permissions would be approved based on how well you edit in the initial category.
HTH
jimnoble
DMOZ Meta
We aren't perfect, but we're pretty good at weeding out applicants who lack integrity. Please don't ask for detail on this because we won't provide it.
MPH said:
And most importantly (because everyone else seems to be avoiding this topic), you'll have to wait until ODP get's their editor application working again. They apparently suffered a massive data crash within the past few months and it has taken some time getting it back up.
crowbar said: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.
Been there, done that, didn't help at all. I am very familiar with the editing guidelines. I've read them at least 3 times and my site complies. You guys seem to think the only way to make ODP better is NOT by improving editors' experience or routines. Rather, you all seem to think that its the webmasters' fault that ODP is so untimely. I have no doubts that a lot of junk gets submitted to the system, but this is something that no one can change.
You can't educate the public on how the site is suppose to work. Believe me, I've tried it. They are still going to submit junk despite the rules. There are no suggestions that I can think of that will improve this without adding some kind of automated system (which is against ODP procedures). The only such improvements that can be made, as far as I can tell, lies in the editors.
Have you ever seen somebody throw grain on the ground for a bunch of chickens? As hard as you might like to get them all lined up in a neat row, and get them to eat the seed in a systematic fashion, it ain't going to happen, they're all going to scatter and peck away wherever they want to, but the job gets done, the seed will soon be gone. (and they like it that way)
My parents' yard is infested with wild turkeys (the bird Ben Franklin thought should be a national symbol). Maybe that's a better analogy. So you're sitting there saying, "I want a wild turkey to eat THAT grain of corn ... which one should I call?"
The first answer is "if it's hunting season, you might as well not call. They're not as stupid as they look: they learn where the hunters lurk--the ones who don't learn, die."
The second answer is "nobody assigns wild turkeys to individual grains of corn anyway. How many grains of corn could the leader of the flock eat, while he was figuring out which turkey was nearest which grain? The "centralized" approach simply can't compete with distributed processes.
And the third answer is, "turkeys concentrate where the eating is. If your barleycorn is in the middle of a desert (or a dungheap) the turkeys may avoid it anyway. And since that's survival behavior for turkeys, it's counterproductive to try to herd them towards it. That's not just centralized control, that's a suicide pact.
The first answer is "if it's hunting season, you might as well not call. They're not as stupid as they look: they learn where the hunters lurk--the ones who don't learn, die."
The second answer is "nobody assigns wild turkeys to individual grains of corn anyway. How many grains of corn could the leader of the flock eat, while he was figuring out which turkey was nearest which grain? The "centralized" approach simply can't compete with distributed processes.
And the third answer is, "turkeys concentrate where the eating is. If your barleycorn is in the middle of a desert (or a dungheap) the turkeys may avoid it anyway. And since that's survival behavior for turkeys, it's counterproductive to try to herd them towards it. That's not just centralized control, that's a suicide pact.
hutcheson said:
Lol! There are a few words in there that don't seem to fit, but very nice vocabulary you have there.
crowbar said:Have you ever seen somebody throw grain on the ground for a bunch of chickens? As hard as you might like to get them all lined up in a neat row, and get them to eat the seed in a systematic fashion, it ain't going to happen, they're all going to scatter and peck away wherever they want to, but the job gets done, the seed will soon be gone. (and they like it that way)
Actually, I have lived in the country most of my life. My chickens all preferred corn or poultry chops.
Anywho, the analogy would fit better if you considered one farmer (editor) trying to feed 1,000,000 chickens (websites) by hand without automation (like ODP
). Does the farmer improve his productivity by trying to organize the chickens? That's not likely to happen, as you say, and I agree. So the only way to speed this lengthy process up (without automating it) is to either get more farmers to help or motivate the one you have to become more productive (or more likely combinations of these two).I think one of the problems of analogies is the hidden assumptions. All of OUR work is based on a "producer-consumer" model, where editors are consumers and website creators are producers. Many website owners see themselves as consumers of editors' productive activities.