What better way to explain why editors are editors, and what it is we do. You can laugh at me if you want to, but, I've been a die hard gamer for years. About 3 months ago I discovered World of Warcraft (WoW) and became totally immersed in it. Why I haven't thought to look, I don't know, but an editor recently pointed me to: http://www.dmoz.org/Games/Video_Games/Roleplaying/Massive_Multiplayer_Online/World_of_Warcraft/ And suggested I might like to edit there. Well, one look at it, and it became my passion. I expressed an interest, and suddenly it was on my dashboard before I had a chance to apply for it. A meta editor had seen my interest and wasted no time in making it happen. Now I am as totally immersed in editing the category as I am in playing the game. My biggest problem is that I find the sites so useful and interesting, that I'll spend way too much time looking at them instead of getting them listed. The game and the editing have semi merged. This is what editing is all about, building a category of useful sites that a surfer will find valuable. In this instance, I have the added advantage of being that particular information seeker, for that particular category, so I can spot what will be of great value to me as a gamer and what won't, what is repetitious and what isn't. Several submitted sites, have little or no content on them. As hard as I looked, I could find nothing useful on them. Normally, I would just delete these site suggestions as adding no value to the category, but because this is my passion, and they are fairly new sites/forums, I will set these aside and watch them for a few weeks. Editors do have the discretion of doing that, or of setting aside a really good existing listing that has gone 404 in the hopes it will come back on line or a new url can be found for it. Editing isn't all black & white, like an automated system would be, humans are expected to use good judgement. If these sites don't improve in the near future, they will be deleted. Will I advise them? Hell no, and this is my passion, I want them to have content I can use, but it's not my responsibility as an editor to help them build their site. They've either got unique content or they don't, my responsibility is to list sites that have that, for the benefit of (in this case) the gamer looking for useful information. These site owners are gamers, they know exactly what is useful to a gamer. (as do other site owners, in other areas of the Directory) It's not rocket science. As silly as it may sound to you, this cat is my passion, I absolutely love it, and I've used many of the sites in it myself. There are roughly 400+ site suggestions waiting for review. My first task will be to read all of the category charters for Games, so I understand the scope of that tree, and idiosyncrasies involved in editing there. (I'm new to the area) Next, I will check all of the existing listings for 404s and the accuracy of their descriptions, spelling, titles, subcat placement, and the ontology of the category. Then, I will start reviewing the suggested sites. In a specialized Topical cat like this, I don't expect to find much spam. After I go through these, I'll be going hunting for more. There's lots of ways to find new sites, all of them very enjoyable. Though I edit everything within the United States also, this particular category holds great interest for me personally, and I'll be keeping a very close watch on the quality of the listings, and keeping it up to date, something I can't always do editing at the country level, just because of the sheer numbers involved. But this is a good example of why I say editors don't process sites, we build categories.
I would love to be an editor in games too. I think by looking at all those different sites you would learn enough to write a book, or just a really cool blog.
Crowbar...those of us waiting to be listed can't afford to laugh. It's good that you enjoy what you do though.
There is always the scriptlance option. With price of DMOZ listing at almost $50, everybody can afford to laugh with exception of "senior editors" who see a declining income.
It's fascinating reading, at least, for a gamer it is, . Attick, it's just as hard to understand your position as it might be to understand ours. Unless you have a cyber business, you would have no idea of what's involved in surviving, let alone being successful. That's something I don't have, I only understand brick & mortar small business, and what it takes to survive there, and that isn't easy either. After 27 years, I'm still working 6 days a week, and I have no websites anymore. Waiting, as you are, would drive me nuts, especially when you can't reach out, grab something concrete, and do what needs to be done. Like grabbing at smoke, I'd imagine.
I'm running into the same sort of problem editing the WoW category. Because it's such a huge site, there are many sites illegally trying to sell gold, false accounts, equipment, weapons, armor ect. to the gamers. Some of them can actually deliver and others are just rip off scams. WoW is doing its best to catch all of them and shut them down. There's always going to be people who try to game any system for profit, especially if it's automated and predictable, unlike the Directorys human editing.
DMOZ has always been game for profit or at least it's editors. A human edited directory is as good as humans behind it and in case of DMOZ, that doesn't say much.
A dmoz listing will give you no noticeable increase in traffic. Don't wait for that listing in the hopes of it making you successful. There are many many ways to increase traffic to a site, receiving a dmoz listing is not one of them. It used to be, many years ago, I think that's where the confusion comes from. But it's 2008 now, and times have changed.
Darn WoW, yet another editor has succumbed to its charms, eh? But at least you are turning your obsess..., uhh addict..., erm I mean completely healthy interest into a positive thing for the directory, crowbar. Well done for taking the time to explain in detail a good example of what editors actually do.
Yes I have been editing for a few months and I really enjoy it. I find it bleeding over into other things.
I always like a good fiction novel, thanks. Pity someone wouldnt edit my locality its a disgrace, i've even submitted my competitors to get something other than 1999 Geocities pages in there with red X's for images but nothing.. Its dead.
I'd love to see a photoshopped image of your town complete with the blanked windows with red Xs and blowing tumble weeds... If one were to look through DMOZ to get an image of life in todays age, they would likely think the internet was broken, or maybe owned by Yahoo...
Perhaps if you were to name that locality, a Regional editor would go take a look at it out of curiousity. That doesn't mean you or your competitors would get listed, but, if something is listed that shouldn't be listed, we can at least take care of that and not have it look like favoritism. Quality issues are different than self promotion issues.