http://research.dmoz.org/publish/chris2001/odp_reports/report_200609.htm The report for September has been published. One item of note is that the directory has recovered from the Robozilla rampage in August and once again has in excess of 4.8 million listings.
The decline in the number of editors continues as the "senior" editors ride the corruption gravy train to the end. Net number of editors: New 332+ Reinstated 209 - removed 673= - 132
You honestly don't believe that lmocr has been working so hard defending every possible illegal sites, just to pass the potatoes to someone else, do you?
Every promotion is hard earned gworld. You have to post daily at internal forum and greet the noobs besides defending every possible illegal sites. If Senior Editors SEO still can sell listings in this category then there is still hope.
It would be interesting to see the breakdown of where the increase in listings has come from. The good thing is that we have not seen yet another record low in productivity though it is still about 25% down on 3 months ago. The other thing is the quality of what is listed - an examination of travel agency sites shows a tremendous quality control problem in that area. Listings in the public directory on 31 December 2005: 4,691,552 Listings in the public directory on 31 March 2006: 4,803,010 Listings in the public directory on 30 June 2006: 4,813,097 Listings in the public directory on 31 September 2006: 4,815,303 Annualised that would be a 3.5% increase in listings. However most of that growth was in the first 3 months. In the last 6 months, the increase is just 0.2%. Growth in the last 3 months is an even smaller 0.04%. Active editor accounts on 1 January 2005: ~8,000 Active editor accounts on 31 December 2005: ~ 7,744 Currently active editor accounts: 7,198 Decline in 2005 - 3% Decline in 2006 - 10% (annualised) Projection for 31 December 06 - 6962 On the plus side the number of cateditalls and above is up by 6 since the start of September though still down on March. This is an important indicator since this group does the vast majority of the work. A mixed result all in but at least it is not all bad news.
Don't give them ideas, that category is probably one of the last categories that is not corrupt to the core like other categories. Don't concentrate on the quantity and instead look at the quality of promotion. I think it was much better if they wouldn't have done it.
Brizzie, yes, more editalls is indeed a good thing. It is more efficient, and means fewer sites going from one queue to another, and waiting another round. It would help if more dedicated editors received some training. After you've done a certain number of edits, and proved your interest, someone should help you with the finer details, like mirrors, vanity URLs, holding your hand while clearing up a spammy category. Increasing the proportion of editalls, and cultivating more editalls, is one small way to improve the directory.
6 sounds like drop in a bucket to me. I wonder how long it took for them to get approved. Only problem is that it would be need done on massive scale, it would be simpler to split spammy categories from normal ones and make average editor editall in normal categories instead of forcing them to go through approval process each time for categories which are virtually dead. Simply blocking spammy categories to only proven editors (and removing ability for newbie to apply) would probably give massive boost to listing of normal content and free up massive amount of time wasted to approving people for obscure categories and rejecting newbies in spammy ones. Current system of advancing is basically set up so that only most persistent editors will have chance of moving up - as if they are doing real job and getting paid for there work - since this kills most fun in editing no wonder editors are dropping like flies.
Increasing the proportion of editalls, and cultivating more editalls, is one small way to improve the corruption in the directory.
Yes, I do think that different categories should be treated differently. I would go as far as to say that some categories should be prioritized over others, in terms of distributing the volunteer manpower. You can't treat the Travel category the same as the Gorilla Suits category.
Another thing that would help the ODP is to be more circumspect in booting out editors that aren't abusive, but make mistakes. Recently, very recently, I have learnt that my definition of a mirror site was was narrower than it should have been. I have no idea how many such mirrors I have unwittingly approved. There must be a few in the lot. Moreover, I now realize that some of my sites would be considered mirrors according to the extremely strict DMOZ definition. These sites aren't listed, they were created with all the extra free time I had when my editorship terminated. It was only a matter of time before I would have made a mistake with my own sites. Not because I was corrupt, evil, or editing for all the wrong reasons. But a mistake was inevitable. Since removed editors are never appraised of the reasons behind their dismissal, they have no opportunity to explain or defend themselves. I wonder how many useful editors are no longer contributing because of this paranoid and short-sighted policy. Perhaps the ODP should forbid editors listing their own sites, simply to prevent losing editors because of mistakes and misunderstandings. Perhaps a junior editor with a website that might be listable should be forced to make a listing request with a senior editor.