Changing your site listing

So true Summer

 

I agree. Lack of knowledge and competence should not stop editors from editing, otherwise we will lose most of senior editors and admins.
Knowledge is not a requirement for advancement in DMOZ, incompetence, good ass kissing skills in combination with ability to be rude to people outside of DMOZ and new editors are much more important qualities for "good" DMOZ editors.

 

Oh good, a bunfight.

Summer may well have a valid point about her site title though it would be better to discuss it internally with references to precedent threads than start something in RZ where the result is going to be inevitable and you won't get a balance of opinions.

I don't believe an editor called "Bob" could have "f*$%ed up all the hard work I had put into cleaning up my category" by Summer, but as Genie alludes to, people get upset about their work being amended, and the best way to deal with that sort of conflict is to talk one to one and if necessary use the internal Mediation tool. From recent examples of that being used I would say there is absolutely no bias in favour of a senior editor - it is objective and fair. Even now Summer could talk to "Bob" and use the mediation, it isn't too late. And he does listen and he is very patient.

What makes you think pagode is aquarius? There is an editor with the user name aquarius and I am sure pagode wouldn't want someone else blamed for his posts. But though aquarius is wrong on many things what he said there was actually a good point. You have editing skills and subject knowledge. Both together are brilliant, but editing skills override subject knowledge. Why? Because objectivity and sticking to guidelines is vital and those too close to the subject matter can sometimes forget that in favour of imposing their own opinions as to what is good and what isn't in a category. I have never worked in the travel industry but I will bet there are few editors who could spot travel affiliate spam as efficiently as I could no matter how deeply it was disguised, including editors in the travel industry. Basically, spotting the spam takes editor experience not subject knowledge. Editors should not work out of their depth though - before working on an unfamiliar subject matter they should ensure they are fully versed in the local branch category charters and descriptions and take the time to get to get comfortable with understanding the subject. In this lingerie case an editor named "Bob" is very familiar with the Shopping branch rules, and he has done extensive work in the lingerie categories no matter what aquarius tells you - at a guess he has reviewed hundreds if not thousands of lingerie sites.

Well I can't speak for a specific sub-category or the timeline, being unable to see the logs, but "Bob" and another meta editor and I did do very extensive work on the lingerie categories a while back.

Are you referring to Summer's points made here or something more general? For example, had you done your homework you could have found Shopping threads where people were told to use site names not company names, and seen that there may be some validity in that point. Enough to discuss sensibly in any case. And in other threads you also seem to be taking a DMOZ can do no wrong approach which is really not helpful to actually improving the directory. When I first came here I thought I was dealing with a bunch of anti-DMOZ nutcases. But if you take time to actually look beneath the surface of some of the rants and throwaway taunts then you will sometimes, not always mind, find something of substance. As an editor who really cares (not one that pretends to, thinking they will get a brownie point) you ignore that at your peril. If all you are going to do is chuck back equally inane throwaway taunts, and repeat stock lines I was using when a green editor of six weeks service, then there is no point in posting at all - I think personally it is doing a disservice to all those editors who come here and listen to people's complaints and sometimes rants, and try to point them in the right direction, calm them down and gently show them how to sort things out or educate them in the ways of DMOZ. I look at what you've posted in this thread and I see nothing of any value either to readers here or to DMOZ - all it does is wind people up and give a bad name to editors. Compare your approach to Annie's or to Genie's and learn! You could have got exactly the same point over - that you think Summer is being unfair - without the sarcasm. That's my opinion anyway. I started posting here because I wanted to improve communications between editors and non-editors and the way you're doing it ain't it. And it annoys me to see the only positive PR work on behalf of DMOZ being undermined.

 

Brizzie;

This is in conflict with your previous post when I posted that we need better procedure and rules for listings and you answered that you like for editors to have a free hand. This is has resulted in Animal farm situation when they stated "all animals are equal but some animals are more equal".
There is no real rules that can be followed by editors. I give you a real example that I have witnessed myself. There is a new editor that has cleaned up his category and asked a meta for catcheck. Meta, corrected couple of listing and informed the editor that everything looked good. The editor wanted a greenbusting privilege in another category and got a rude response from an Admin that the listings in the category are not good and it should be cleaned first. The funny thing was that the critic was about a listing that Meta has corrected.

The situation at present looks like this:

1) There are no concrete rules because editors should have the possibility to use their own judgment and experience to list sites.

2) Editors can not use their own judgment and experience in listings because it is not acceptable to higher editors and their own opinion about the rules that each one thinks that DMOZ listings should be according to.

 

I know, it is complicated. Like yesterday - my council left me a shiny new blue wheelie bin for "recycling" to go alongside my green bin, my brown bin, my red sack and turquoise bag. This was in exchange for the black plastic recycling box which can't be recycled so the instructions were to put it in the grey bin. What grey bin? I am confused where to put my empty milk carton let alone asking me to explain the concepts of editorial discretion. If I put the black plastic shiny box in the blue bin or green bin or brown bin they will fine me and it won't fit in the red sack or turquoise bag. So I'm digging a hole in the garden to bury it. My council has a problem with communications - the bay outside the offices says "Picking Up and Letting Down Only". I think they meant setting down and haven't worked out that politicians should not have their group photo taken with such a sign in the background after putting up property taxes by twice the rate of inflation whilst the roads have potholes in them. They know what they meant, it just didn't come out right. Like they probably meant put the black box in the green bin. DMOZ, they get their words mixed up too but they know what they mean. And so do you really gworld

Sounds like a foul-up and if I were the meta who had done the catcheck I would be very annoyed. But from that example you can't surmise that this is normal or even common. A new editor should not be caught between the opinions of two senior editors and deserves an apology from both. Shit happens. Mistakes are made. There is no one right way to edit but there are plenty of wrong ways to edit and the wrong ways are documented. I do know of an editor who was threatened by a meta with removal for poor editing and that was overriden at a higher level so it works the other way too. But that is the only example I know of in my years as an editor.

Editors must follow guidelines but the guidelines leave a lot of room for discretion between a Must List and a Must Reject. It has to because sites are judged on quality relative to those on a similar subject and the bar will vary according to category and branch. Experience teaches you where the bar is set and generally an experienced editor will not override the decision of another editor without good reason, usually a re-review. With new editors it is slightly different because you are trying to teach them the bars and it ain't always easy. Once they've got the Must Lists and the Must Rejects you encourage the new editor to work out the middle ground for themselves, hopefully in the middle.

Editors cannot use their own judgement to list sites that are prohibited from being listed, or which breach branch or category charters, or sites that belong in other categories. New editors must learn those basic elements before being given more freedom. Once they have built their editing experience it is rare they will be overriden. Even then they can take it to forum for opinion or even to Mediation and junior editors have won victories over senior editors down that route.

But one thing I will say is that many of the guidelines are poorly written and need updating. Some are obsolete and have not been removed or replaced. Sometimes they have been updated and someone hasn't been looking at forum threads or guideline updates and noticed. There was a classic case where some very important Regional and Shopping branch policies were out of kilt and half of editors thought you must not list and the other half thought you could and the split was right up the middle splitting Admins, Metas, Editalls, and other Editors. And that had been happening for years. The cause was poor guidelines and mixed advice. Sorted out now though.

 

That is what you think.

If you remember the internal forum, almost on any important question, the opinions are 50/50 with the decision to list or not to list is based on editor's opinion.

Why not clarify things and have a clear procedures? Why to strive for having an anarchy? There are simple solutions that can make the life much simpler for everyone but there is a resistance to implant those guidelines because the power will be taken out of the hand of individual editors and replaced by rules and procedures. The arguments about these subjects sometimes becomes so ridiculous when editors claim that they are a higher authority than government regulatory bodies that control certain businesses or the laws.

 

Hey that is not really true, Your hustlerpanties.com website was moved to a higher category, and then the url was change to the main url of your company:

http://www.viciousenterprises.com/

http://www.dmoz.org/Shopping/Clothing/

 

Sorry to hear that but you are welcome to my reality.

 

Hey that is not really true, Your hustlerpanties.com website was moved to a higher category, and then the url was change to the main url of your company:

http://www.viciousenterprises.com/

http://www.dmoz.org/Shopping/Clothing/

 

Why was the URL changed?

some of the meta editors have many web sites and hundreds of deep links listed in DMOZ, how come nobody changes the URL on those sites to the main url of their company?

 

You wouldn't be kicked out for opinions - it requires a unanimous verdict by at least 5 meta editors and they would never get unanimity for a removal for that. They will have gone through your editing logs and history and found something you shouldn't have been doing. Usually the cause is pretty obvious - only one removal ever had me stumped for a valid reason when you look at the logs. No doubt this current argument made someone go and investigate though.

 

Very interesting. editing logs are not investigated until you express an opinion that is disliked by "senior" editors.
I suppose if someone wants to abuse DMOZ and be corrupt then it is better to keep their mouth shut and get busy with some serious ass kissing.

 

I am not an expert, but shopping seems too general for a clothing company, besides no website is listed in shopping. Your company’s URL connects to all three of your clothing websites, so doesn’t it makes sense to simply put the main website in a high level clothing category? This seems better than the previous listing…
But that just my opinion…

 

To be honest, had I come across the site at random I would probably have done that to ensure only one listing for a group of sites on the same theme - clothing. It is a standard approach pretty uniformly applied. In Shopping branch.

If anyone including a meta has a group of sites on a similar theme then they should get the same treatment. If you have evidence of abuse report it direct to an Admin (where a meta is involved) - I am sure you know how to do that anonymously gworld. Deeplinks - Adult again? Wait till they sort that one out one way or another.

 

Also so do some editers, and webmasters and other websites like this site
digitalpoint
http://search.dmoz.org/cgi-bin/search?search=digitalpoint

G can you show some editor's website listing that is not
appropriate? You are not showing any examples or details..

 

Isn't all phone.... web sites of the same theme?