What requirements we need to become editor at DMOZ

No, no, you misunderstand. Editors can and do list any site that's out on the web, with or without your consent. lol

Webmasters create sites and do the work of creating them. Wonderful! Peachykeen! Cool!

Once they hit the web, they're in the public domain, and free for the gathering. (which is what editors do)

Now, if all you gracious fellows hadn't created all these sites and put them in the public domain, then there would be no need to collect and organize them, but it most certainly doesn't give you any rights whatsoever to tell the collectors what or how to collect, nor how quickly they should be collected.

Your rights ended when you published the sites, and ours began.

Do we owe you something? Well, of course not, you didn't create those sites for the Directory, you created them for yourselves, silly. We merely decided to organize them for the information seekers. Got it?

 

Well. Talking like this to webmasters community can't be a good thing for a DMOZ editor.

 

Yeah, I got it... but seemingly you don't. Creating the sites is a lot more work then simply filling in a few fields on some outdated backend to a directory only webmasters find an interest in. So again, Without the webmaster how many listings do you think the ODP would have?

We are what the ODP needs to "collect their sites" and what the ODP needs to actually bother looking at what is collected. The people that own the ODP are webmasters, the people that founded the ODP are webmasters, and most of the editors are webmasters.

So one last time, YOU NEED US.

Webmasters will carry on without directories, directories will not carry on without webmasters.

 

Why not? You want me to be honest, don't you? This is the ODP forum, and who knows more about the Directory than an editor? And remember, anything I say is only personal opinion, just as yours is.

The way I understand the Directory is that it was created and structured to collect and organize, not every site that exists, but sites that have a little something different to offer. There's nothing more frustrating than to click on site after site that have the same identical information on them. What a waste of time.

To keep it free and offer the results to everyone, it had to have volunteer editors who would work for free.

So, it's a Directory built by the Internet community, for the Internet community, but because unscrupulous people tried to spam us with multiple copies of their sites, in order to get an unfair advantage over competitors, the Directory was forced to come up with the security and the Guidelines we currently have.

No editor is on a power trip, we all work within the guidelines that have been set up for us so that we have the flexibility of editor discretion, and editing is fairly consistent across the whole thing.

There are no "bosses", the editing community as a whole makes all the day to day decisions by consensus. (when that's necessary) The editing community itself is made up of people with various amounts of editing knowledge, permissions, and experience, from new editors to administrators, and all are volunteers.

New editors are trained by more experienced editors, because there's a lot to learn, and when an editor asks a question, 5-6 editors will answer, not just one. After 8 years, I still ask for help, so it's a never ending process of learning. Call it group think, if you'd like.

We feel privileged to be editors, but not haughty. We might occasionally show a little attitude in here, but that's only human nature, considering what we get handed. But a serious question, asked politely, will get a polite response from us.

 

For what? If you all stopped creating websites, the Directory would still exist as is.

If you deleted every site that exists, the Directory would no longer need to exist, and the volunteer editors would find other things to do with their free time. Right?

I seriously doubt that would ever happen, but, if it did how would that affect us? Giving us more time to spend on other hobbies ain't exactly much of a punishment.

 

That's not true. I have read several times that meta editors have the last word about what gets published. What happens is: you have the wrong idea about what consensus is:

crowbar —I would like to list this site www....com, I've just reviewed it for about three ours.
         It's up-to-date and has relevant unique content.
metaeditor —No.
crowbar —Ok.

Code (markup):

Are you kidding? hahaha

 

Where do you come up with this stuff? lol

That's the silliest imaginary conversation I've ever seen, and all I can surmise from it is that you're trying to suck me into revealing actual internal conversations, which would be revealing proprietary information and subject me to possibly getting the boot.

It would be much simpler if you just ask honest questions, if you want to know something, instead of doing all this imaginary speculating.

 

You are being a little paranoid, Bond. How old are you?

 

Your insult is not welcome.

What fake information are you talking about? You want me to reveal my sources? All right.

In the comments section of this entry at blog.dmoz you'll see two former editors (one revealing his identity by referring to one of his categories) supporting my information. Now, it was not so fake after all, was it?

http://blog.dmoz.org/2008/10/10/what-happens-after-i-submit-my-site-to-dmoz/

(Check comments between 8 and 12)

Note that nobody at DMOZ could deny what they said. As one of them was willing to reveal his identity. So they choose to avoid replying to those comments.

 

@Caprichiso

This information as portrayed by you, does not exist! Even using the link and the "between 8 & 12", I cannot see this transcript?

For your information, NO meta has to approve an edit. When an editor is granted permission to edit in a category and he or she does so, publishes sites, without review by an other editor. If in the future a mistake is detected, or a site is published and is not compliant, than any editor that has permissions to edit there may remove the site by placing it into the unreviewed pool, or by sending it to the appropriate category. It may be a meta, it may be an editall, it may be simply an editor that only edits in that cat.

But what you stated is wrong, is misleading, is not factual and is manufactured by you to portray something that is totally WRONG.

Now use your brains.....if the admins of the blog really wanted to hide something, they would simply delete that post. Think about it! They are trying to be transparent, they allow posts that dont agree with them, this is why the have the blog, to promote discussion.

 

ahhahahahahaha, You can't be serious. Do you really though I was talking about the conversation? I see cowbar is not the only one unable to recognize irony.

Well. Let me explain it to you, my child. The conversation I wrote is a kind of parody about what an actual conversation between cowbar and a meta-editor would be. If you don't know what a parody is you'll find a good description at Wikipedia.

Comments 9 and 11 are from former editors who explain how meta-editors reverted most of the work they did. With no reason. And what they say there is just the same that everybody hear from former editor all the time.

 

Well at least you owned up and admitted that you made up the information. That the transcript was manufactured by you I commend you for that.

Not knowing circumstances, it would be remiss of me to discuss or even comment on what statements thes ex-editors are making.

But in general terms, if an editor, be they editall, meta, admin or whatever stumbles upon a published site that does not meet guidelines, then they will either unreview the site, or correct the problem. Placing the site into unreview allows the editor that did originally edit the site, the opportunity to re-appraise or correct the mistake. If this happens too often, then obviously the editor is struggling and needs assistance...........if the editor failed to accept assistance, failed to improve or continued to edit against the guidelines, then they may possibly be removed.

This is called quality control.

...And as for calling me "my child", thanks for the compliment. It has been a very long time since someone reffered to me as that and wow, you must be pretty old

 

No. I had to explain to you something a six years old would understood at the first read of my post. And now you are happy for winning a dispute that never existed. Your perception of reality is weird.

In fact, just as others at DMOZ, you can't deny them either. Which leave us with you unable prove your accusation. I think that is a very recurrent subject for DMOZ editors around. Being unable to prove what they say.

 

I have nothing to prove. Unlike you, i wont make up a fictitious conversation

We try and offer explanations and it always ends up being unpleasant. Thats why i laugh when people complain that dmoz does not give feedback on sites, dosent advise if sites are "accepted or rejected".

You only have to read the threads on this forum and see how they always turn nasty.....then tell me why a volunteer editor would choose to communicate with disgruntled webmasters.

 

Any special benefits by being a dmoz editor?

 

No special goodies or benifits i'm afraid.

We do this as a hobby. Some people do crosswords, some play solitaire, I do editing and enjoy building up categories. You may not believe me, but its quite fun to pick a small town and then build their online presence so where no town was previously in dmoz, there is now a cat with say 30-40 sites.

It's not for everyone but at the moment, it keeps me occupied.

 

BS. They delete most of my comments. It is not very popular to show actual cases of corruptions. That is the reason I don't even read the BS blog anymore. The articles in the blog is a competition between senior editors to show who is the best ass kisser.

Not before you become senior editor, specially in shopping. Then you can run to scriptlance or start your own "SEO" company and start selling DMOZ listings.

 

Aw Gworld, I wondered when you would enter the thread and commence the usual claims of corruption, selling links, butt kissing etc.

But we have heard it all before

 

No it is called a witch hunt, categories I use to maintain didn't see a meta in years until I made post on this forum, suddenly every edit I ever made become target of investigation and websites got delisted based solely on ignore of meta editor who was unfamiliar with topic. Once no evidence was found they made up some bogus accusations which they never dared to tell anyone outside meta forum just to remove me as example to other editors who do not follow the party line.

 

Wow, that's really weird, Ivan. In 8 years of editing, I've never had that happen, nor have most other editors. Must be some kind of personal vendetta against just you, no doubt. Sad, very sad indeed. Oh well.