Why does anyone become an editor?
Posted September 11, 2005 | 5 comments
People sometimes wonder why anyone becomes an editor - why would anyone waste their life reviewing and listing websites and not get paid for it. The general assumption is that most people become editors to get their sites listed but that seems to be incorrect. I don’t know of any reliable measure of the different reasons, but here are some.
Someone may have a particular interest in a particular topic and have already collected sites related to that topic. Being an editor allows them to put that list into the public domain, and continue to develop the list. They apply for the most appropriate category, and perhaps later apply for additional categories.
Some people have varied interests and like the concept of contributing to the public good. They like looking at varied sites, reviewing them and listing them.
There are those that just like the general idea of organizing and categorizing topics. These type of people often become librarians and indexers, and they may do that as a full time job. Being an ODP editor, just extends that ability and interest.
Some only have part time jobs, or are retired, and being an ODP editor is a hobby that stretches the mind. It beats being glued to the TV watching mindless media.
Some people do want to get their site listed, they are not professional SEOs or webmasters, they just have one site for their business, and want to get it listed. So that’s fine, provided they are even-handed and also list competing businesses. They have no interest beyond that single category. Note, that it is not that common, and that a large number of ODP editors do not even have a web site.
It is not uncommon for someone to apply in order to get their site listed, but find out they enjoy ODP editing, and continue on to ask for additional categories and do extensive editing of sites in many categories.
There are of course those who join with ulterior motives, they want to manipulate ODP to their advantage. They join, edit correctly for a while, then start to try and sneak in mirror sites, or tweak descriptions with keywords.But it’s not that easy, an editor starts with one small category and has to work their way up to get additional areas to edit. There are also cross-checks and balances, any editor can see what any other editor has done, and eventually someone will notice.
Comments
TC Shannon said:
Why then do they make it so difficult to become an editor. I have applied several times within the past 2-3 years and I always get turned down. I never apply to anything remotely related to my website, but yet the result is the same everytime. I,like you mentioned in this post am semi-retired and simply enjoy doing things to benefit the public, especially if it has anything to do with improving the net as a whole, which I think DMOZ serves this role. I guess i’m just a huge fan of dmoz and would love to help if given the opportunity
September 23, 2005 | Permalink | Reply
Administrator said:
Your comment on the surface sounds very honest.
There is only one thing, this blog has been bombarded with poker comment spam, and so far my preventative blocks have tagged and stopped them all. Your comment also got blocked, and that did not seem right, so I manually released it. I now see that the URL you had in your signature, was one more lousy online poker URL, and your comment is purly another attempt to get a link back to yout site. That in turn points to another garbage blog on poker and DMOZ. So I removed it.
Good try - but you lost.
September 25, 2005 | Permalink | Reply
TC Shannon said:
Ok…Just because I earn a little cash from card games doesnt mean I am a bad person or a blog spammer. I DESPISE blog spammers and constantly have to check comments on my blogs, just like you. My comment about becoming an editor was and still is totally legitimate. If I comment on a blog it is always on topic and legit. Think about it…if i was a spammer, would i be back here posting another comment that i know you are just going to delete anyway. I resent the “assumption of guilty” but at the same time the way those guys bomb everyone I also understand why we automatically get tagged as spammers. If it was up to me…they all would be in jail ! I battle these guys every day too and can show you posts on my blogs as far back as 1 year ago complaining about this problem
October 3, 2005 | Permalink | Reply
Administrator said:
Well, your comment got blocked again as another poker spam, but since you appear to have actually typed it in, rather than have it generated by some bot, I manully released it.
Back to the original comment. My impression is that many editors are let in routinely who actually are not up to standard, with the hope that once they start editing, they will improve. So it does not appear that hard to get in. I know when I was accepted, I realized after a month of editing, that my original application was full of errors but they let me in anyway.
A lot of very competant editors were not accepted with the first application, but had to try several times.
On the other hand I have seen some editors admitted to work on categories on which I also work and they have not proven to be a good choice, they do not catch on, and leave a trail of bad editing that I have to go and fix up. So even though there is a need for a lot more editors, the last thing we need is an editor who will just make more work for someone else.
October 3, 2005 | Permalink | Reply
TC Shannon said:
I used a different email this time so maybe the spam trap wont get me. Anyway, I appreciate you taking the time to respond and I understand your point, better than I did before. I guess I will just keep trying to get accepted. There is no ulterior motive for me other than I enjoy working on challenging projects and giving back to the net that has given me so much enjoyment. I think I’ll try the personal pages section this time and take it from there. Keep up the good work, I read everything on your site and gained some valuable information
October 3, 2005 | Permalink | Reply