So What Is Wrong With Editors Accepting Cash for Listings

I thought he meant it like a town, ex: Shitsville, Arizona

 

I rather like the recent changes facility in wiki software. Any change you make is highlighted on a list and sysops monitor the list. I have made a mistake, gone straight back in to change it, and been beaten to it by a sysop. Nothing in DMOZ is monitored real time so if an editor is going off the rails, deliberately or accidentally, it can be spotted immediately. Vandals can be stopped immediately and the software enables instant reversion so any damage they have done is wiped out. In DMOZ vandals can operate for months even years and if they are discrete enough they can get away with it. The damage is sometimes so extensive it is impossible to deal with because there is no instant revert. Evidence - Adult. DMOZ software capabilities and features are a definite factor in its problems. You could change an awful lot of the culture by changing the software. For example, if you had instant notification of all changes, available to anyone who cares to look, you could swoop on problems immediately. Example - those pedophile chat rooms that were listed. Had they come up on a recent changes list monitored by senior editors and viewable by all, they would not have lasted more than a couple of seconds from being listed rather than being listed for years.

But a key point of DMOZ management strategy is to suppress as much information as possible because there is little if any respect for the regular editors from Admins. They don't want editors worrying their little heads about potential issues arising in the directory because their little heads might object and disrupt their agendas. How can a regular editor possibly understand the finer complexities of the decisions. Because regular editors and editalls, and probably metas, don't have big enough brains to handle these finer complexities they cannot be allowed to influence any decisions. I will guarantee that if DMOZ ever did develop a recent changes tool then (a) its existence would be a closely guarded secret and (b) it would only be available to metas and (c) if you suspected its existence and asked you would be asked why you wanted to know, of what possible interest could it be to you, and that you must know that you cannot possibly be told about things they don't want to tell you about.

 

Reality sometimes hurt does it ?

No ish that's DMOZ he is reffering to.

 

If a tool for this did not already exist, it would be fairly straightforward for any editall+ to build it, given enough time and inclination.

 

When Newhoo started it was very much top management driven, later on metas were taken in as sort of helpers with at best an advisory role. That’s all gone now and recently there has been an attempt at a grass roots driven management strategy. Unfortunately that is not part of the culture, there are no formal decision making processes in place (like say Wikiopedia) and the results are at best mixed.

 

The first part of that is interesting - yes it could exist but be a state secret. However I am not sure the database is set up in such a way that it would work real time with only editall rights. I think there is a separate table for each URL so what you would need to do is interrogate changes to any table as they happened, and new ones. It is no use interrogating the editor logs because they omit key information such as rejects from Unreviewed. It seems to me that hitting an action button in the editing windows runs several tasks - updating the category table, updating the URL table, updating the editor table. But the database isn't relational. To achieve a realtime recent changes would be easy but would probably involve the action buttons writing a record to another table. An hour's work but you would need to get at the form source. If it was that easy it would be surprising if it didn't exist.

There is no reason to suppress such a tool though and make it exclusively meta or even editall and above. One very open thing about DMOZ is that all editing and URL logs are available to all editors. All the information is there for all editors to see but the tools arrange it in a useful form. Restricting a tool just makes it difficult, not impossible, to get at the data. One example of a ham fisted attempt to suppress information was the mysterious absence of a particular editor's editing logs when his integrity was questioned. How long before we were shown how to view the logs anyway? There is a peculiar and very irritating habit in DMOZ of not realising that trying to hide stuff, whether by restricting tools or creating private forums, or rigid and inflexible enforcement of confidentiality, is going to make people think there is something real worth hiding. It is what inspires all the colourful conspiracy theories here and elsewhere. I thought when I became editall that I was going to be greeted in the secret sanctum of the private editall forum by all sort of juicy information, that wondrous things would be revealed. What an anti-climax. With one or two exceptions, watching paint dry would be more exciting. More a way of discussing things between fewer but more experienced people without the annoying intervention of lesser mortals.

 

Sorry to ruin your story brizzie but such a tool exists and it is available to all editors as far as I can tell.

 

Not real-time though.

 

How recent? Are we talking the switch to Admins or something very new. I recall not that long ago a very much top down approach from Admins that until only a couple of months ago seemed very much to still be the approach - the development of strategies and initiatives by Admins then trickle it down as a decision with the troops filling in the details, rather than the strategies and initiatives coming from wherever, the community deciding, and Admins facilitating and implementing the decisions of the community. I accept that the culture is not there but cultures can be changed overnight if the will is there. Raising an issue to highlight a need for change in the regular editor forum is considered disruptive by Admins because it interferes with priorities and initiatives they they have personally decided upon without consulting the community. That does not demonstrate an enthusiasm for grass roots involvement in the management of the project and changing that approach is bound to be viewed with some suspicion. One thing very much against the grass roots responding to greater involvement in the management is that the Admins were appointed without consultation and are not in anyway accountable to the community, only to AOL. The only real way to get meaningful grass roots involvement in the solving of problems faced by DMOZ is for issues and initiatives coming from the grass roots to be genuinely welcomed, taken seriously, and acted on as a team. This may well distract Admins from what they think the priorities should be, though not as much as if they think if they managed it properly, but Admins should be serving the editing community, not their own agendas.

 

Well that is an improvement then - I don't recall ever seeing it so if it was there in my time it must not have been well advertised. And I am pleased and surprised it is available to all. Is it being used and is it effective at identifying problems immediately? And are they being addressed immediately? Shame it isn't realtime - that sort of encourages constant monitoring.

 

Yes the Admin thing was originally presented as an experiment. Somehow it is now taken as a fait accompli. It could have been a step towards a better management structure, rather than a source of stagnation.

 

Thank you for the laugh. Do you mean the present Admins in DMOZ or some other organization? Most of these Admins can not develop a strategy to tie their shoes, let alone to manage a volunteer organization.

 

I think I made a mistake in the thread at the time of saying whatever the replacement for the AOL editor in chief I really hoped it would not be a committee. A post or two after a committee as replacement was announced. Committees can work if they are accountable and representative and, most importantly, have a strong chair. This experiment was appointees, albeit of excellent editors, but with no accountability to the community and they all appear equals. So decision making means unanimity and compromise, preventing quick and radical change when it is needed. And there is no need to pay attention closely to the community as the community cannot challenge them in any way. Had it been a transitional arrangement towards elections then fine, and they may all have been re-elected but then they would have been far more responsive to the community as a result.

 

Well they can and have developed strategies. And it has resulted in record low editor numbers and record low productivity. Not all strategies work, especially when you have no idea how to manage a project properly and don't want to show weakness by asking for help.

 

Now the truth comes out again, stopping corruption is not acceptable. Everything cosmetic that still permits the abuse is good and welcomed but nobody wants to go far enough that stops the corruption.
How is my suggestion bad for volunteers?
Does it stop them from listing sites? NO
Does it stop them from finding new sites and adding to the directory? NO
Does it stop them from editing the titles and descriptions? NO
Does it stop them from their own sites and other people and possibly abuse the directory? Possibly YES or at least makes it more difficult and that is the problem that makes it unacceptable to editors.
The crooks don't like regulation and hide behind all the talks about "volunteer" work and claim that as a volunteer, it is their right to be corrupt.

 

I don't think that they believe that there is anything in their mandate that requires them to do anything but maintain the status quo. That is not exactly conducive to forming an effective strategy. When the admin position was first created it was supposed to be performance based. Instead it has become a permission of life, like that of meta.

Can you think of a system less likely to produce innovation, top individual performance, and effective management? It would seem that the republic of the web has developed a politburo. And this criticism also applies equally to the meta permission.

 

Stopping corruption by turning editors into submission processors is not acceptable. There are other ways.

It is overkill and unnecessary. Corruption is but one issue facing DMOZ and it is not the most significant one. Declining editor numbers and productivity are far greater threats to its future.

When we went through this once before I explained that I had done a project to list all school sites in all localities in a particular Australian state. To do that I mined, reviewed, and listed every school in every locality and in doing so I skipped many submissions waiting in line. Under your method I would have been unable to do that, I would not have done the project, no schools would be listed in that state and I wouldn't have bothered with the other sites because I was not interested in them at the time. Result - several hundred fewer listings of non-commercial sites, useful sites of value to the local communities of that state. How does that in any way combat corruption or serve DMOZ objectives. You could sieve flour using the holes in your method.

 

Fumbling and falling down like a fool, usually is not recognized as strategy.

 

With proper procedures that stops abuse, the doors can be opened to REAL volunteers without the "private club" group using the abuse excuse to stop the recruitment of new editors.
With many new and knowledgeable editors that are editing in the area that interests them, DMOZ can very fast catch up with all the latest web sites in each field. Poeple join in because they can edit in the areas that is of interest to them and they have the knowledge.

 

I think they picked up a copy of George Orwell's Animal Farm and mistook it for a serious management manual. When you manage a group of volunteers who can log off and tell you to go to hell if you ignore them then you need to keep their confidence even if they cannot remove you. What is the point of being Admin over nothing or being the Admin who presided over the ruination of the project. That is why I said if they had any honour they would resign over the persistently declining performance indicators and at least let others have a go at reversing the fortunes. It won't happen though, they will stay until AOL remove them or the servers get turned off.