Best Of The Web

After many months of debating and delays, I have finally taken my friend Rob Jones up on the offer to help out at, and joined the team of the Best of The Web directory. I honestly don’t know how much I will be able to contribute or how quickly for that matter as other personal factors are draining my resources at this time. However, its something that I have been considering for a long time now and finally decided it was worth checking out. Let me be clear though, I did not leave DMOZ for BOTW.  Rather I just added another project to my list of things to pitch in on. It not only compliments my participation at DMOZ, but also my very minimal contributions over at JoeAnt over the last year or two.  I look forward to working with a few old friends who have also joined up over there. If nothing else, it should be a great experience building up some categories of interest basically from scratch.  DMOZ is my first love and I still will be focused on that project, this was something I also wanted to try.

I have only just started playing with the buttons and find it a little challenging being a newbie all over again. My initial impression is that it gives me the opportunity to do what I love to do, which is building categories.  However the differences of style and design have been a bit challenging thus far.  I suppose its because of 4 years being accustomed to DMOZ and Joeants interfaces.   I look forward to being able to dedicate a little more specific time, to playing with things and getting familiar with it.  Its also nice to not have to deal with other pressures, and just focus on editing.  While I enjoy the many other things I have the opportunity to do at DMOZ and wouldn’t change anything, its a nice change of pace to just find and list sites without any other concerns.

I look forward to the challenge and appreciate the opportunity.  Thanks Rob.

Dmoz: Personal Projects and Editor Initiatives

Well not much personally to report this past week. I managed to work through a lot more of my Indiana cleanup project. Guessing it was minimal, perhaps around 100-150 total edits but it was as much as I could squeeze in during an otherwise hectic real life week. I also managed a few quality control edits this week. To honor a good friend during their absence (which is about time to be over damn it!), I logged quite a few Kids and Teens quality control edits as well.

There are several good editor initiatives going on at the moment. One of the best ones, is trying to highlight a very important and well developed category. The category is for U.S. Presidential Candidates and was highlighted the other day at Resource-Zone in the “Inside the ODP” thread. Anyone interested in finding information on the candidates for this years Presidential Election, should check out the excellent work that has been done there.

Another thing that I noticed, was that the Official DMOZ Blog is still a mess. It’s a shame really.  There could be so much more accomplished with it.  If only there was some consistent, experienced input going into it. I know there are discussions going on to improve it, I hope someone figures out the best way to utilize that as a positive resource. Having it function up to its potential would be a big plus for the project. At the very least post something to remove that ugly strike through post, that is nearly impossible to follow.

I am sure I am forgetting some important ones. If any other editors have comments or projects that they think should be mentioned, by all means let me know. For now, I am off to work on the huge pile of real work I have pushed aside all morning.