Editing Permissions

There's a lot of misunderstandings about becoming an editor and what it is we do, including accusations about being power mad, having our foot on the neck of the regular submitter, and deliberately keeping people out. That isn't true at all.

Editing permissions are like a pyramid, with new editors being at the bottom, and meta/administrators/staff at the top, the higher up an editor is on the pyramid, the more categories he can edit, because he edits in everything beneath him. And, there are many mini pyramids within the larger one.

Every editor, including metas and administrators, all start out in one very small category at the bottom of the pyramid. An editor doesn't own this category, he merely has "permission" to edit there, and so does every editor who is higher up on the pyramid. All editors, no matter where they are on the pyramid, only have "permissions" to edit, some in small categories, some in wide areas of the Directory, and all editors can have those permissions removed for cause. Nobody is exempt from that, not even metas.

Once you become an editor of a small category, you are faced with an enormous amount of information to learn, and just our internal forums alone, are so huge as to be very intimidating at first. The ODP is much larger than you could imagine.

This small category is your training ground, and where you go from here is left totally up to you. Nobody is going to lead you around by the hand, or force you to do anything. It's an opportunity that requires self motivation, and a desire for higher or wider editing permissions, but it's not required of you. You may remain an editor by doing the minimum one edit every 4 months.

As we're all volunteers, with various amounts of time available to us, and as even just one site improves the Directory by at least that much, no demands are placed on any editor to do any kind of editing quota. When you give a gift of time and effort, no demands can be placed on the giver, by the recipient.

Every editor has the opportunity to recieve higher or wider editing permissions, if they want them, including meta or administration positions. No permissions are an award or a reward based on favoritism, they are neccessary tools to accomplish certain tasks within the Directory, and are based on ability, knowledge, experience, and need, nothing else. These are things that can be readily judged by an editors editing record.

There is a large amount of help and advice available from more experienced editors, and we encourage editors to go for these higher permissions because we want them up where they can be of help to us, not limited in what they can do.

The view and access from a small category is very limited. The higher the permissions the wider the view and access become. Though these higher permissions aren't a reward in themselves, they are still very rewarding for an editor to recieve because it's an acknowledgement of achievement and trust by his peers. Misuse them, and they could be removed.

There are many types of tasks in the Directory for an editor to choose from, depending on the level of his editing permissions. Reviewing new site suggestions, finding new sites on his own, checking existing listings for dead urls, poor descriptions, accurate category placement, spelling, creating new subcategories, placing needed @links and relcat links, reorganization conversations and implementation, security matters, investigating dead urls and finding replacements (if they exist), investigating mirrors and redirects, helping new editors with advice, approving new editor applications, leading new team projects, approving new category requests from current editors, and moving misplaced sites to the correct categories.

Though it may sound cocky, when we say that site submissions are only a small portion (and not necessarily one of the most important) of what we do, it's very true.

One misconception about what editors do is that we judge entities and their worthiness to be included in the Directory, or that we judge submitters and how sophisticated their site is. That is false, we only judge "websites" and the content on them, and whether they'll add value to the category, using our Guidelines, nothing else.

Our job isn't to make judgements about site design, correct spelling on a site, how well the site is organized, or the topic of a site (unless it's totally unnavigatable) or it's the type of site we don't list, so it's a lot less personal than many of you may think.

The most common reason a site hasn't been listed yet, is that we have many more site suggestions submitted than we can handle, and because there are so many categories, reviewing sites is a very hit and miss operation.

 

Very nice explanation crowbar and a green for you. Problem with the peeps out there is they don't really care as long as they serve their interests firsts. Second most are so smart that they are so dumb not to understand a thousand explanation. Look up in the directory section.

 

nice explanation crowbar

in a forum like DP , it might be difficult to think that the people on the internet is not full of ONLY webmasters , but other Netizens exists too , because thats how we earn money - serving the regular visitor / layman, which would not be the case if there were more webmasters than ordinary visitors.

It would be wrong to say that there is nothing wrong in the ODP , and its the ideal website , built with ONLY the Best fundamentals in place. There are probably numerous editors who have been disgruntled by DMOZ policies or practises and left or turned hostile.... but the best editors have stayed behind , because their idea about their role in the ODP was clear .... they volunteered for a volunteer project , they did not invest money in it to slowly gain ownership and control the site.

If you want to make the net / odp / etc a better place , DO IT ... don't wait for 100's of others to change their mentality , their stances ... ODP provides you with your chunk of the site and you can begin the betterment there only.

 

Who are the editors? They are just ordinary people who got interested enough to volunteer their time for the benefit of others. They are teenagers, housewives, professors, businessmen, teachers, webmasters, retired people, and anybody else who might have an interest in a hobby, or who might like to find sites for their community.

Some can spend every day editing, some edit occasionally, some forget and end up timing out, some do few and some do many edits. It's just a normal cross section of any community, only it's worldwide, and once you become a part of this community, it becomes like family. Some are likeable, some a little hard to get along with, we fight, we argue, we agree and disagree, and then we make up, just like any family.

Some, like myself, leave and come back because I miss the family/friends, and because editing becomes very addictive. It becomes a normal part of life I guess, and you wonder how things are going, and if anything new is being done.

It's kind of hard to break away from, and it's very hard not to come to its defence when you see the unfair, illogical, nasty attacks that you know aren't true. On the other hand, you can understand the view from outside, and why people see it the way they do, and it's mostly based on misunderstandings of what the Directory actually does, compared with what's expected or wished for.

 

That is frustratingly true.

That's very true, and there's nothing wrong with making money on the net, and when your living depends on it, it's very understandable why people get frustrated and feel helpless.

Who says we aren't, , but change takes a frustratingly long time, too, sometimes, and with an entity this large small changes could have very large effects that have to be considered first, and ideas are usually much harder to implement than to come up with, .

 

As crowbar said. Nice post. Hope that Q will approve it.

Agree and have to confess that this was the reason why I apply. It was almost two years ago. Since then have several thousends of edits, have new friends and will find more. And have learnt a lot. Five or six of my applications were rejected, but like many other rejected editors I manage to correct my mistakes and to receive more editing privs. Editing is nice hobby, believe me . And if you feel that you can contribute with your knowledge - you are more than welcome.
Read our Guidlines, and what crowbar wrote.

 

Would you be kind enough to let us know where your from as we know that you still need to take ESOL as I do.

 

Many of our editors speak other languages, and I'm sorry I don't so I could run over and harrass some of our World editors.

Budalata is a good friend and a very sharp editor in World who edits both the English version and World version of Bulgaria.

 

Definitely he is a good world editor. I was just wondering http://www.dmoz.org/Regional/Europe/Bulgaria/Business_and_Economy/

 

errr... lets not go out of the scope of the post as this is the only post without Q intervening
"YET"

just to be on the safe side , crow ... i am arindra i think Q wanted to know that before

 

This is the kind of what you call arrogant posts and show off especially coming from an education editor.

 

I suspected you might be, arinda. You and editor laigh, despite being newer editors, are a welcome addition and I think you'll end up as metas someday.

I like, Q, he tries to be fair minded. (most of the time)

To get back on topic. Even though I've been editing 6 years, I still have to fill out a request form, and give 3 sample sites, (just as an outsider would do to become an editor), if I wanted to request editing permissions in another category.

I might get it or I might be turned down, as I have been in the past. The important thing to remember is that it's not personal, it's based on the information you provide, or in the case of current editors, your track record as an editor. Permissions are usually not just handed out willy nilly, like candy, there has to be logical reasons for granting or turning down requests. (though I have been given new permissions without asking for them)

My point is that current editors are required to do the same thing inside, that non editors are required to do when trying to become editors for the first time. If we are turned down, then it is up to us to review any possible reasons we might get in the rejection notice, improve ourselves, and try again. There's not two sets of standards, just one.

 

thanks popotalk for the red

theres nothing to showoff .... as i spend some of my time for following my voluntary interests .
neither I , nor any of the editors i know inside the ODP gain any extra mileage in business , or at the ODP . why don't you try it ?

if you bothered to read ... i was mentioning it to crowbar , a fellow editor, which was a joke , which he understood .

As regards education , i am sure you would like to elaborate , but i am least interested to learn

 

Yes, fellow editors, arinda, standing on the same floor as equals, , and the same way that all sites are treated.

 

Nice to see a few of the many myths and incorrect ODP statements covered so well

Well done.

 

I have only ever once posted on this part of the board as generally, the threads dont develop into anything other than arguements, or at best, heated confrontations. I do lurk and read some of the posts but it is never a pleasure, like other areas.

This is one of the few posts that should be commended. It is informative, friendly and well written and provides an insight into a DMOZ Editors duties.

I have the feeling that the general public, myself included, tend to feel that they are entitled to be in DMOZ, whereas in truth, it is obvious that DMOZ is suffering a lack of physical rescources. ie. Editors. It probably also suffers from the "little to no communications problem", but that is connected with lack of Editors.

Just thought i would say thanks for the insight and Happy New Year to all you DP'ers.

 

Thank you, snooks and scipilot. Most people submit 1-5 site suggestions at most, I think, so their view of the Directory is limited to those. When I log in to my editing dashboard, I'm faced with 50,000-60,000 sites waiting to be reviewed and scattered across the whole United States, and that's only a small part of the Regional section of the Directory.

50% of those are misplaced and need to be moved to the correct category for review. Even though it doesn't take long to review a site, and most Regional sites do qualify to be listed, it makes no sense to review each of these misplaced sites as I'm moving them.

These are sites that usually have to be listed down at the bottom of the pyramid (in their cities), but were submitted to a higher spot on the pyramid (at the State level), and most of our editors in Regional edit at the city level, so I want to move the sites down where the city editors can reach them.

As you might imagine, this takes time to do, delays a site from being reviewed, and creates more work for us that could be better spent on reviewing sites. A good rule of thumb is, if you submit a site suggestion to Regional, always submit it to the city/town that the office/entity resides in. It's physical location.

When a site is submitted to the Directory, 90% of the titles and descriptions have to be rewritten to be compliant with our goal of describing what a site is and what can be found on it to the web surfer.

I realize that this does not fit in with your goal of adding keywords to improve search results, but our goal is to inform web surfers about the site, not to provide search terms. With millions of sites to choose from, our intent is to make choosing which site to visit easier and faster for the viewer.

Again, it only takes a few minutes to rewrite these, but multiply those few minutes by 50,000-60,000 times, and you can see our dilemma, and another reason for the long delays.

 

just thought of mentioning , so many people speak of lack of communication between ODP editors and the submitters , in between HERE and R-Z , theres large amount of actual communication, if used intelligently and without skepticism ... would do a world of good for both parties.

 

ODP reserves the right not to list any site. And only lists sites it feels, ie the reviewing editor using category charters and the ODP guidelines, enrich the category because it contains unique content. There is no right for any site to be listed.

Secondly just being short of editors means we do not always get round to reviewing submitted sites, but if we did they would not all get listed. And communication is not much to do with the shortage, its about more general resources for automated responses and the fact that many ODP editors simply do not want to enter into a discussion about if/when/why a site is not listed. Our primary focus is with the surfing public and trying to categorise the internet with sites containing unique content. Discussing the why's and wherefore' of that with the owner of any site is not what many ODP editors wish to do and ODP do not expect them to do so, in fact the opposite is more true and the advice is more to dissuade editors from doing so if anything.

 

Though my heart breaks, I have to agree with revr or anonymous here and its true what he says. The only problem is how they communicate with the general public. They don't know how and they think that everyone speaks their nicely polished English. Don't forget that this forum is made up of worldwide peeps. Just make it simple that their site is unlistable because its crap.