Would like to receive some advice from the community

[daiweb]

Perhaps not actually a fault, but surely hypocritical?
If* I understand you, you were once an editor but you were not active enough to keep your account open?
It requires only one edit every 4 months to maintain an account, so if you were unable to achieve that, it seems very strange that you are now criticising others for not doing enough, when they have managed to keep their accounts.

*If I misunderstood your comment, then I apologise, but it is still inappropriate to criticise volunteers for how they spend their hobby time.

hello Makrod, no I never have been an editor, I asked to become but I didn't go to the second step.
And I don't criticise volunteers, I just wonder, after the first reply, if the number of volunteers is too low for the ODP's dimensions and trying to create a serious talk about how to face the future of ODP....but I realized that you all are hypersensitive and each try to open a talk is taken as a criticism, it's ok, I understood. Thank you.

 

[makrhod]

I realized that you all are hypersensitive and each try to open a talk is taken as a criticism

Hmm. Pot...kettle...black.

if you would like to see the directory improve, then please re-apply to become an editor. Otherwise, what on earth is the point of complaining?

 

[Eric-the-Bun]

My original point on quality was "Another aspect is that the goal for the ODP is not quantity but quality and as the directory grows more effort has to go into maintenance." i.e. as the directory goes so some of the effort needed to add new sites is taken up by maintainance which contributes to the reason why sites may not be added as fast as when the directory was smaller.

Your picking on the phrase "our goal is quality, not quantity" ignores the entire point - that quality takes up resources and, by extension, that there is a lot more to keeping a directory going than just adding sites.

You seem to be saying that because other people have decided that we should do something other than what we do, we should fall in line with their expectations. When we say no, you say we are defensive.

Reality means that 'n' volunteers add 'x' sites during a period when 'y' sites are removed and 'z' new sites are created. These numbers could be 1000, 5000, 10,000... we don't know. The fact is that it means there will always be sites out there that could be added and have not been. Philosophically whether these number in the thousands, millions or trillions, does not matter.

The dimensions of the directory are determined by the number of volunteers which fluctuate. If they increase so the directory may increase in size or not, if they decrease, then the size may also decrease or not. The number of volunteers has no effect on 'x','y' and 'z' .

Up to a point, more volunteers means more listings but will never give rise to a 'Golden Age'. Even if we were listing all the sites that met our guidelines people would then complain that the ones that don't, should also be listed.

It's extremely complicated looking at all the dynamics involved. Other than a passing curiousity, it is not something that I (and probably most editors) are interested in.

 

[jimnoble]

I think the key here is to look through the eyes of the surfer - particularly in 'popular' categories.

If he's desperate to find a UK web designer beginning with the letter S, he's already spoilt for choice with a list of 78.

If he wants a hotel in UK/London/Westminster, we list 104.

In neither case would I claim that we list all possible entries, but I do claim that we've listed enough to satisfy the surfer's needs. Mission accomplished .

We can be very responsive when there's a real need. The Swine Flu category was created within days of the first outbreaks in Mexico and it continues to grow.

 

[daiweb]

I think the key here is to look through the eyes of the surfer - particularly in 'popular' categories.

If he's desperate to find a UK web designer beginning with the letter S, he's already spoilt for choice with a list of 78.

If he wants a hotel in UK/London/Westminster, we list 104.

In neither case would I claim that we list all possible entries, but I do claim that we've listed enough to satisfy the surfer's needs. Mission accomplished .

We can be very responsive when there's a real need. The Swine Flu category was created within days of the first outbreaks in Mexico and it continues to grow.

Thank you. All of your reply made me more conscious of how big the job is, that editors work as well as they can and the maintenance is important as well as the inclusions. In a world where all seems to be made by algorithms to have an army of human volunteers checking manually the quality and dealing with a so large offer is a goal already and I hope that most of the human activities would evolve giving back to the human hands the control. Yes, Jimnoble, sometimes who, like me, works on the internet forgets to look through the eyes of surfers because we (with our tiredness) look more through the eyes of our clients, the websites' owners, who ask us continuosly to have relevant positions in directories and search engines ... they are able to transmit this anxiety.
Anyway, the discussion was interesting. Thank you again.