Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and DMOZ Has Crashed Again

Yep like a bad reoccurring holiday prank or a terrible Christmas jingle that you can’t get out of your head, DMOZ has crashed yet again. Fortunately having learned from last years catastrophe, the public servers are not effected and only the editor servers are having issues.

This does mean that some scripts such as site suggestions cannot be processed and editors have no access to perform any editing tasks. This would include checking the status of editor applications as well. Updates will be posted at Resource-Zone, as soon as editors are informed of any changes.

I am mostly away at the moment (partially on holdiay and partially on a self imposed break) but will try and update when things get back to normal.

Hope everyone is having a Great Holiday season!

—Update—

Editors are now able to log back in. Some scripts may still be off line, but most functions have returned. I am guessing there is a delay due to the holidays, and once staff is back to full strength all things will be fixed. I am sure Resource-Zone will update their thread when something more official is reported.

- - - UPDATED - - -

As reported at  Resource-Zone all has returned as expected and editors (including me) have now returned to normal editing.   Hopefully the problem is now corrected.

Holiday At DMOZ

This post was edited completely today (hours after writing it). Originally it was just announcing that I was gonna be away for a week or so for the holidays.

Have you ever read something that so thoroughly pissed you off, that you stopped, looked at it again and then decided WTF? Thats pretty much where I am at this afternoon.

For now I am away. Partially for the holidays and partially for re-evaluating (yet again) why I bother. When you attempt to thank someone for their work and offer to help in anyway they could use you, only to get slapped in the face as if you attacked them is utterly incomprehensible. For now, I am going to assume that stresses outside in real life combined with other things may have lead to a mis-understanding. Then again maybe it was just the doorbell going off and the realization of something else setting in? Taking time off may help clear the cob-webs.
In any regards, everyone have a safe and happy holiday season! Hopefully will see you in the new year.

DMOZ: Categories Without Editors

Yet again I have seen it asked, “There is no editor for the category my site was submitted to, does it mean that the site will never be reviewed?” The answer is no, that is not what it means. All it means is that there is no named category editor on the category.

There are plenty of sources out there offering bad advice about this topic, its time to set the record straight. Whether a category has a named editor or not, really means little in whether the site will be reviewed or not. Sites suggested to a category with no named editor, are no less likely to get reviewed than any other suggestion. Any editor higher up the category tree can and will edit in the category, also there are 200+ editors with directory wide permissions that can and will edit anywhere their interested in working. In fact, I try not to keep my name on many lower level categories. Sometimes having a named editor on a category, discourages new editors or new editor candidates from applying there.

On the other side of things, the presence of a named editor doesn’t automatically mean that sites get reviewed quicker. Having a named editor does not mean that the editor listed is currently active in that category, rather it only means at some point they were interested in it enough to need direct login access to it. From an editors point of view, having your name on a category only means that you are able to directly log into the category from your Dashboard. Many editors with wider permissions will limit that to top level categories like Business or Regional only rather than to specific sub-cats there, keeps our dashboards less cluttered.

So the bottom line is still: Suggest your site to the best category for the site. Don’t worry if there is a named editor or not, because it does not matter. The site has the same chance of being reviewed whether an editor has chosen to be named on the category or not.

More information can be found at the DMOZ Help Central where most of the other common issues are discussed. I have also addressed this and other questions in my FAQ section of this blog, and Resource Zone offers a FAQ as well. For a list of the categories that I have my name on, check out my DMOZ Profile.

Hope this helps.

Regards!

shadow575
http://shadow_odp.home.insightbb.com