Editors with Conflict of Interest??

[spectregunner]

you didnt address the fundamental issue and that is allowing editors to add their own sites is in itself a position of conflicting interests.

 

Yes, I did. It is an allowed practice.

 

allowing editors to add their own sites is in itself a position of conflicting interests

 

We disagree.

 

If anyone adds their own site they automatically enter a position of conflicting interests.

 

You are welcome to your opinion.

 

To pickup on the offtopic point about unique content being objective, that's really not the case at all. Unique to you means to your knowledge, to your understanding, in your interpretation, it is very much subjective. Unique text is not the same as unique content so even the term unique becomes subjective.

 

Wow, you are really stretching on that one. If someone posts a photograph that they took, and they have the only copy, then that is unique. If you originally author a text, then that is unique. If you paraphrase an article out of Wikipedia, that is not unique.

 

Once you have reviewed thousands of webistes, spotting non-unique content get easier, just as experienced college professors can spot a less-than-unique term paper a mile away.

 

It is called judgement.

 

Environments that lack judgement, or that don't trust people to use judgement, often intitute "zero tolerance" rules. Look at your typical school district, where 5 year-olds can get suspended for drawing certain pictures. We are a community where we expect editors to apply their personal knowledge, with the shared community's knowledge, with the editing guidelines.

 

We have guidelines not rules because we trust our editing community, and that trust is almost always rewarded. We do not need a lot of rigid rules that take away the ability of our editors to make judgement decisions. That is why any editor has the right to re-edit a site -- even if it was added by a meta editor. Actually, it is not a right, it is an obligation if there is something patently wrong with a listing.

 

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt here and assume that you are not trolling. I do suspect, however, that you are looking at this project from an entirely different perspective (not right, not wrong, just different) -- which is driving this discussion.

 

I strongly recommend that you take a few minutes and read through or editing guidelines -- they will provide a great perspective on how we approach the task of editing. You'll find lots of uses of the word "should" and very, very few uses of the word "must."

[crowbar]

If you have two cookie cutter Real Estate sites, but one of them has the personal profile of the real estate agent on it, that would be unique content and very easy to spot. One would get listed, the other wouldn't.

 

The question is almost always, "Would the information provided on the site benefit the web surfer looking for that kind of information."

 

The generic site would not. The other site has the additional information about the agent, which would be something the surfer looking for an agent would find useful.

 

No judgement is really required, the information is there, and any editor can spot it. It's objective, the unique content is either there or it's not. Subjective would be, do I think it's well written and informative enough. That's not a judgement I should be making, the web surfer will judge that.

[nicetoseeyer]

yes unique is objective but judging what is unique is subjective. You seem to be suggesting when an editor reviews a site he knows what is unique. There is no way for an editor to have complete knowledge of the entire internet.

[crowbar]

Unique content can be something very minor, like one photo of a personally built watergarden (a category I have an interest in and edit). There can be no other watergarden that's exactly like that one, and no commentary about how it was done would be the same. It's a hobby of mine.

 

It varies from category to category, and an editor will know what is unique content for that category.

 

Take fishing charter guides, something else I edit, unique content in that category is never an issue there, but it is in a real estate category because those kind of sites are all very similar and contain the same standard information on every one of them, so we look for anything that's different.

 

Even though I'm not a fisherman and have no interest in the topic, that category needed an editor badly, and it's a lot of fun editing there really, so though I'm not familiar with a lot of the terminology, and it takes me longer to look the sites over, I use the same basic editing Guidelines we use in all parts of the Directory.

 

I could edit in any part of the Directory that was handed to me, because we have the Category Descriptions which tells us what the scope of the category is and the existing listings to look over, lots of other editors to ask advice from, and our Guidelines apply to all parts of the Directory. Unique content is usually pretty easy to spot, once you familiarize yourself with the category.

[nicetoseeyer]

"Even though I'm not a fisherman and have no interest in the topic,"

 

 

thats quite funny. The number of people that ive come across that cant get to be editors in topics they are amongst the knowledgeable for and then people can be editors for something they know nothing about and could care less about. Words like "own goa"l and "shot self in foot" in come to mind.

[motsa]

Expertise in and passion for a topic are not required -- most areas of the directory can be edited quite capably without either. ODP editing skills or the potential to attain them are what is important.

[makrhod]

people can be editors for something they know nothing about

Yes indeed. In fact many editors comment that they have learned about a subject because of building and improving a category, rather than the other way around.

It's one of the often unexpected pleasures of being an editor.

[nicetoseeyer]

Yes indeed. In fact many editors comment that they have learned about a subject because of building and improving a category, rather than the other way around.

It's one of the often unexpected pleasures of being an editor.

 

ROFLMAO!

So you think someone who knows nothing of a topic is well placed to judge the best sources? Crikey!

That explains why a cat that i have hobiest interest in is full of rubbish. Its because the subject is an area of fast moving updates and the vast majority of websites retain old out of date information. The only people aware of this are those intimately involved in the topic. Its sad that editors let loose on a cat with no understanding of it go with the majority of websites stating the same thing as being a sign they must be correct. Oh well, perhaps this is why i have yet to come across anyone who knows about dmoz and doesnt have an interest in online commerciality.

 

Anyway enjoy your hobby of pretend authorative editing. Hey at least your learning a topic! Or are you? Hum!

 

[pvgool]

So you think someone who knows nothing of a topic is well placed to judge the best sources?

No, but DMOZ is not about listing the "best" sources.

All sources which meet our guidelines can be listed.

 

Anyway enjoy your hobby of pretend authorative editing.

We do not pretend to be authorative of the subjects me edit. But we are authorative of the DMOZ guidelines which describe which sites we will list and which we won't.

Hey at least your learning a topic! Or are you? Hum!

Yes, I learned a lot of some topics beacuse I 'worked' on these topics in DMOZ.

[chaos127]

That explains why a cat that i have hobiest interest in is full of rubbish.

I'd have to disagree. The activity of one or more editors in a particular category in no way stops any other editors for also working there. So if we had an editor with expertise in that particular topic who wanted to work there, it wouldn't matter whether or not we also let people work there with less of an interest.

 

Sites found by the editors (either from their own searches or from the pool of sites suggested by the public) can be added if they meet our site selection criteria. While less knowledgeable editors may not be adding the sites you would like to see listed there, they will at least be improving the directory in terms of the number of listable sites that are listed.

 

I'd say the reason the category is in poor shape is that no-one has taken enough of an interest in improving it. (For editors that are already knowledgeable that just means volunteering to edit there. For others 'enough of an interest' would mean also being prepared to take the time to become knowledgeable.) Unfortunately that's the nature of any volunteer organisation, and something we have to live with. Perhaps you would like to volunteer to help?

 

i have yet to come across anyone who knows about dmoz and doesnt have an interest in online commerciality.

Well, you've come across me now... ;-)

[makrhod]

Well, you've come across me now... ;-)

More than just you, actually.

 

Perhaps you would like to volunteer to help?

Unfortunately I doubt that anyone with such a derisory attitude towards the values and aims of the ODP and its volunteers would be interested in actually helping with the directory. But I'd like to be wrong about that.

[hutcheson]

i have yet to come across anyone who knows about dmoz and doesnt have an interest in online commerciality.

 

Nearly all the people I know, who know about dmoz, have no interest in online marketing. Now what does that say about people in general, or dmoz? Nothing, really. But it DOES speak volumes about the kind of people I want to know, and the kind of places where I go to meet them (including, of course, DMOZ itself.)

[nicetoseeyer]

lol!

 

hey you guys are always good for a laugh, i have to thank you for that. Sometimes its hard to know if you have a straight face when you write half the stuff you do.

Oh and now dmoz is not looking for the best sources, just those that meet its guidelines!

:D:D:D

[makrhod]

dmoz is not looking for the best sources, just those that meet its guidelines!

Well of course these are one and the same. That's the whole purpose of the criteria for site selection.

[pvgool]

Oh and now dmoz is not looking for the best sources, just those that meet its guidelines!

You still don't get it.

 

What is "best" and who determines "best".

What you might call "best" another person might call "rubish".

 

If we would only list the "best" (whatever that might be) websites we would never list any website.

Why? We would only be able to determine which sites are the "best" after we reviewed all websites. When we had reviewed them all we had to start over to look at all new websites before we list any because those new websites might be the "best".

 

We have a solution for that problem.

We don't care what anybody might call "best".

We created a set of guidelines about which websites we wan't to include and which not. All websites that are listable according to our guidelines will be listed (we just don't know when that might happen as there are a lot of them and there are even more websites that we won't list but have to look at anyway).

[hutcheson]

"Best" is not a concept that has any meaning at all, when you're talking about objects of unlike kinds. Which is "best", a tractor or a trawler? It very much depends on what you're trying to drag. Which is "best", a minnow or an upholstery tack? Again, it depends on what you're trying to nail.

 

So, two websites from two different businesses cannot be compared. If you want to know all about Ace Hardware, the Acme Tool Company website is totally useless, regardless of its beautiful graphics and logical navigation. For you, the Ace Hardware website is the _only_ website that matters, and the Acme site is irrelevant. So which is best for the purpose? There's only one site that has one purpose, and it's best for its purpose. And there's only one site that has the other purpose, and it's best for ITS purpose. And they both get listed, in any order that happens to be convenient.

 

Because that's what the ODP lists. Unique content. Websites that don't ever get compared to the competition because there cannot possibly BE any competition for them. (The businesses may compete, but the websites do not and cannot--they serve completely different purposes.)