Things That ARE Of Concern To Editors

Ok feeling bad about my previous post that turned into yet another rant. Let me try and describe some of the things that do concern me as an editor.

1. Building the categories that interest me most. IMO this is the single most important thing that concerns me. I want to see good quality sites being added to categories of greatest interest to me, as well as overall growth particularly in Regional.
2. Quality control of categories in the directory. I spend a huge amount of my time checking links in categories I am working in. I enjoy catching redirects, framed URL’s, and dead sites before the normal quality control tools run through.
3. Mentoring and assisting new editors to become good, productive contributors to the project. This has been and always will be one of my to priorities. Seeing editors advance their abilities and reach higher and higher permission levels because of help I have given brings me more pride than my own contributions to areas of special interest to me.
4. Trying to help out with answering questions as best as I can in both Resource Zone and other external forums to help educate, inform and help the public as much as I can.

Since becoming a Meta I have a few new priorities that are of great concern to me.

1. Joining new editors. I want to see as many good new editors working in the project as we can possibly get. Frankly I am a bit discouraged by the lack of quality in new editor applications. I have noticed that over the last year (that I have had access to reviewing applications) there has been a decline in applications with at minimum good faith attempts at following guidelines and being honest.
   • I consider my self a very lenient reviewer because I am usually willing to take a chance on accepting a rather borderline (used loosely) application in the hopes that I or someone else can help the trainee become a productive contributor.
   • The problem is personally I am sick of seeing applications to Real Estate categories and Travel Agency categories and Web Design categories most of which are slapped together with complete disregard for the guidelines and application instructions and when sample URL’s are offered they are either already listed, all affiliates of the applicant, or completely wrong for the category being applied for.
   • I spend most of my time sending out rejection emails that have more thought and input in them than the applications that are being rejected only to see the same application come back two days later.
2. Abuse Investigations. I take abuse allegations very seriously and its a very important task to me to investigate both reports submitted from the public and other editors as well as finding abusers and poor editors on my own. I admit to not being the most skilled investigator or the best at finding and documenting abusers, but I do my best to bring attention to them when I find them.
3. Helping editors establish their skills in their categories and branch out to reach more levels and personal goals. Similar to Item #1 I love to help editors with new permissions in new categories and its something I hold as a high priority.

The single most important thing for all editors to be concerned with is the quantity and quality of unique content being included in the directory. The above things are just some of the other things I personally hold as high priorities. Hopefully it sheds some light on what it is that goes on in my editing life.

Things Of No Concern To Editors

Ok, I have seen a lot of people trying to say what editors should and should not be doing. It’s time I give my opinion about what Editors should not (are not) concern themselves with. Of course this is just my opinion so take it with the grain of salt that its worth.

1. SEO, Search Engine Optimization or what ever term you want to use for making a site show up better in search engine results. This is of zero concern to Editors and is commonly mistaken as something that the editors should help with.
• Editors are not working to help sites rank better. Period.
• Each listing is just one link, no more no less.
• Editors are not responsible and have no control over what weight (or lack there of) any search engine or other data user places on having a link.
• Any benefit a site receives (all be it minuscule) in rankings is a completely unintended bi-product.
2. Keyword search results. Again nothing that concerns an editor when listing a site. In fact, editors are dictated by the guidelines to explicit work to avoid any keywording in listings.
• Editors found listing sites and keyword stuffing the descriptions are abusing the system.
• Repeated keywording (includes use of common topic keywords, repeating words throughout the description, and also repeating the sites title or the category header in the description) in an editors description will result in a warning. If the warning is not heeded, they jeopardize their editing privileges.
3. Site traffic. Editors do not and cannot be concerned with traffic that results from a listing or lack there of. I have seen it said in a few places recently that a sites traffic has been hurt because of one factor or another-usually regarding the description assigned to a listing that is not keyworded as the owner would like. See #2 above.
• It may sound harsh, but the complaint that there is a loss of traffic because a site was delisted or not listed according to the proper keywords the owner wants is NOT of any concern of the editors.
• If a site is make or break based on the performance of one link, it’s most likely not going to be successful with 100 more links. The site should sell its self not rely on a third party to sell it for them.
4. Trying to list every site made on every topic. This is a bit trickier to understand, but the goal of the directory is not to list every site, but to try and list as many of the best sites on a topic as it can to provide someone looking for information a diverse enough list of good resources.
• Trying to list every site is impossible and it wouldn’t help anyone looking for information.
• Editors try and find the most unique and content rich sites they can to add a benefit to the category they are editing.
• Some one looking for information about Blue widgets, does not need to weed through 60 look alike sites with the same information. What they need is a list of a couple of dozen of the best sites offering good, unique information that help them make the decisions or find the products they need.
5. Who is using the data that the directory produces. As the directory makes all of its data available for use under the Free License so long as proper attribution is given.
• A lot is said that the editors are responsible for the above things (and more) because users like Google view the link as important.
• IMO its very debatable how much weight Google (or anyone else for that matter) places on a dmoz link.
• A dmoz link is not a magic bullet that instantly boosts any ranking on any search engine, including Google.

These are just a few topics I have seen discussed and I guess I was just in the mood to talk about them. This kind of turned into a rant, which wasn’t my intention, no really it wasn’t. I just wanted to speak my mind on a few topics that were bugging me.

Some links of interest:

• Using the ODP RDF Dump
• Frequently Asked Questions About the Free License Agreement
• ODP Copyright Information

DMOZ - Personal Goings On

Well everyone seems to be on vacation?? My normal daily chats are nil at this point because those I communicate with on a regular basis are away on short holiday’s. Guess that means I must be due one as well, right? Not for a while longer I am afraid. So there is not a whole lot going on with the editor front.
I had been working on a lot of quality control over the last month or so. I have put that back on the rear burner for the time being though. Now I am trying to concentrate on more ‘meta’ tasks such as application reviews, abuse investigations, and most importantly editor mentoring. At the moment I am in pretty regular communications with several editors, ranging from a couple of newbies I recently joined to a couple more experienced editors still needing a few rough edges polished out. They know who they are.
I guess there is one editing update I can give. Those who know me, are aware that I am a NASCAR fan. I added the Nextel Cup Series Category to my profile as I have done quite a bit of cleanup there lately. I have concentrated my efforts mainly on cleaning up the Drivers categories as a lot of those listings were out of date due to driver/team changes. I hopefully have those mostly under control now, but things will change again I am sure.
Beyond this, there really is nothing new to report, unless I am forgetting it.