Remove Listing from DMOZ

Of course we do, in some very small localities. We do it all the time, so answer brizzie's question please. Without an answer your proposal is less clear than the guidelines you say you're trying to simplify.

 

Most are. We are talking about procedures for the directory and not some obscure locality category.
What is the point of having such localities category from users stand point, unless they are looking for a politician who has school that works as beauty parlour at the same time?

 

Are you suggesting that there is a small locality category that have politicians, schools and beauty parlour all mixed up and has a million sites waiting in submission line?

 

But force isn't something likely to result in increased editor numbers as you claim your proposal would do.

You haven't really grasped what the "lines" actually are have you? They are a source of potential listings supplied by webmasters, generally less productive than numerous other sources of relevant sites to add to any category. They have no priority over any other source of potential sites. Because of their propensity to be stuffed full of spam in certain sections of the directory editors often choose to focus on sources that will yield far greater percentages of listable additions. Being able to bypass the "lines" increases productivity and allows many more new sites to be added than would otherwise be the case.

 

I wouldn't suppose gworld would know anything about Regional editing.

 

You know exactly what I mean. Within a state you may have a hundred or more localities not sub-categorised. Within those localities you could easily have 1000 or more unreviewed submissions of all types, none of which related to the exercise. Tell me, what do I do under your system?

 

Now you really are talking nonsense. You can't possibly talk about making procedures that work for the whole directory without considering the obscure locality categories. You are aware of the fact that Regional is the single largest branch, aren't you?

You can't possibly make directory-wide guidelines without including the largest branch.

 

This procedure will work for directory wide, independent of how many excuses that you and brizzie try to find.

I mean seriously, how can we implement a procedure that "might" delay a listing of a politician that has a school that also functions as beauty parlor which is located in Timbuktu for a minute. It is unheard of, it is not acceptable.

 

LOL. You really have no idea about Regional branch do you? Sites are listed by geographical locality and if there are not enough sites in a locality to sub-categorise then they aren't. Until enough sites are listed for a place then all the sites are mixed up regardless of topic. What is the point? You want a school in Littleville then it will be in the top level category and easily seen. You want the mayor's website - in the top level category and easily seen. Ditto for the beauty parlor. Unheard of? Don't talk crap, it is normal.

#1, they aren't excuses, they are scenarios your procedure must cope with - what are the answers. #2, if you can't convince "liberals" like Annie and me, you probably are wasting your bandwidth.

So far your procedure has prevented zero sites being listed abusively, zero sites being rejected abusively, been unable to cope with simple bog standard scenarios, caused a dip in productivity by forcing editors to review obvious spam in order, and the only thing you come back with is we are making excuses. Any procedure you come up with must be robust, and achieve its purpose, and so far it is neither. Maybe it gets better so please don't stop now.

To your credit, being fair, it has prevented new editors joining, listing their own site, then disappearing. But only in a category with other sites awaiting review and assuming they hadn't previously submitted their own site and it isn't currently the oldest one waiting. That isn't a bad thing at all. I presume there is some technical mechanism within your plan that would not allow them to add a new site before reviewing waiting ones. Such editors are a real pain, the current guidelines do provide for their removal, and many are removed for what is already considered abuse. Your system prevents the crime instead of it having to be dealt with after the event. A technical solution to this would take development resources. An easier solution might be to remove and permanently ban the site as well as the editor when they are discovered doing this - make sure they have been wasting their time. AFAIK, current guidelines do not allow for the removal of listable sites added by editors under abusive circumstances, i.e. increase the penalties.

 

So according to your estimates, how many sites do you think are waiting in submission lines to be added to locality in Timbuktu?
If you want to add a school site, add it to the end of the line, check the 2-3 sites waiting before your suggestion and add or delete the submissions depending if the site qualifies or not.

 

Question

Answer

That was my project, it wasn't adding a school site, it was adding all the school sites in a state. In fairness I think there were only about 400 other sites waiting when I started that project. Nevertheless under your rules, to do a public service and add every school website in that state, say 200 of them, I would have had to have cleared 400 other sites I did not have the least interest in. I promise you, cross my heart, had your scheme been in action 200 school sites would not be listed and neither would 400 other sites. Similar for other projects I undertook. Similar for hundreds of other projects undertaken by other editors over the years. So not only is that an all round lose-lose situation but it doesn't achieve your anti-abuse objectives either - what abuse occurred and could have been prevented, exactly, as a result of that exercise gworld?

 

If a locality is so big that can have 1000 listings waiting, then sub categorize. Who in the right mind will look through 1000s of listings of schools, politicians, beauty parlour,.... to find a dog breeder? Isn't DMOZ suppose to be for users? What is the use of a category of 2000-3000 listings that can be anything?

Do not justify and find an excuse for not doing the right thing because the setup of the category is not properly categorized and doesn't make sense.

 

Are you deliberately being obtuse gworld?

A state can have 100 or more localities small enough not to be sub-categorised. 0 to 20 listings typically. If there are an average of 10 sites waiting in each for review then that equals 1000 or more. To place all the school sites you must put one or two in each of the localities.

What "right thing"? The "right thing" was listing 200 odd schools in a state. The localities were not incorrectly set up and they do make sense within the Regional structure and objectives. If you're going to start trolling gworld then you're on your own, I'm not playing. The scenario is there - how does your system deal with it? To make it clear, this is not a hypothetical scenario, it was a real project by a real editor.

 

So what is the problem, add the schools to the localities and editors will approve it in time. If it is 10 listings waiting in that category, it shouldn't take that long for an editor to go through it.

Part of the reason that these procedures are necessary is the fact that more editors are needed. Increase the number of editors to reasonable numbers and the submission lines will be something of the past. On the flip side, this means that a lot of editors can actually do something and DMOZ will not be the small private club of about 200 people.

 

Oh please, you can't be serious. You expect us to review and list fewer sites but add more to unreviewed? And, we should especially avoid listing sites that offer a public service, such as schools? Just put them in unreviewed and hope another editor comes along to deal with the trash and the treasure?

 

I am serious, may be if the editors look at the submission lines then they would not need to waste their time running after the buses, trying to read the advertisement on the side of the bus which is one of the suggested way of finding new listings.

Implement proper procedures, admit real volunteers who are enthusiasts and knowledgeable about the subject that they want to edit, instead of the present bunch and there will be no long un-reviewed submission lines.

 

I did.

Why not list them at the same time? There was no abuse or corruption implication.

I was the only editor editing in that state.

So far your proposal has not prevented a single abusive addition of a site nor a single abusive rejection of a site. So it hasn't given a green light for metas to relax on editor acceptances. Nor do I see a massive queue of would-be editors declining to apply because they are worried about corruption

They aren't necessary; so far they achieve very little in terms of combatting abuse and even that little could be achieved via a simpler change. What they do do is prevent editors undertaking worthwhile cross-category projects of interest to them, something that would damage the directory where it works best and cause many good honest and highly productive editors to lose interest. Someone of your obvious intelligence, coupled with your internal editor knowledge is surely capable of coming up with something considerably better than this ill-thought out proposal that goes nowhere near your stated objectives.

 

No, I won't do that. Schools are important, I'm going to list them whenever I find them without regard to any others sites that may be waiting.

 

Well said Annie. Don't forget the hospitals, hospices, and local community groups too

 

Why don't you pull all the editors out of Adult for a month and get them to clean up the backlog? Will anyone really miss the extra thousand or so deeplinked porn pages that won't get listed for that month?