Oct 24th 2008 8:44AM
A Year in ODP
About a year ago, we heard from a brand-new editor who shared his experience of his first month with the project. If you've wondered what's happened since then, wonder no more! Editor laigh is back with a follow-up to tell us all about his first (very busy) year with the ODP!
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Hello again from me, laigh, to all the readers of the DMOZ blog. I hope the last year has been kind to you and it has been a good one.
You first met me when I wrote an article called DMOZ...Why I Joined And Why I Love It away back in the midst of time in October 2007. At this time I was fledgling volunteer who was looking forward to a long and varied career as an editor in the directory. I had just been granted permissions and I shared my experiences as a newly-accepted editor. I would love to share my experiences from then until now and to show how my ODP "career" has progressed.
As I say, at the time of writing of the last article, I had only been an editor for a month or so and at that time I had only completed about 3000 edits. I was editing furiously and was enjoying it thoroughly. I was originally accepted to edit in the category at Regional/Europe/United_Kingdom/Scotland/South_Ayrshire/Ayr/Business_an d_Economy/Shopping but by the time of writing in October 2007 I had been given permissions to edit in Regional/Europe/United_Kingdom/Scotland/South_Ayrshire, Regional/Europe/United_Kingdom/Scotland/Business_and_Economy, Society/Organizations/Lineage/Cultural/Clans and Sports/Football/Rugby_Union. The encouragement I was receiving from senior and more experienced editors was vital to my success and I received it in abundance from all concerned.
Where am I now and what am I doing? Well the basics are that I have completed over 41000 edits and I am now listed, as you can see from my profile, as an editor in the top of the categories in Regional/ and Sports/ and also have permissions to edit in Reference/Education/Colleges_and_Universities/Europe/United_Kingdom/Scotland/. You will also notice that I am listed as an editor in Regional/Europe/United_Kingdom/, Regional/Europe/United_Kingdom/Scotland/, Regional/North_America/United_States/ and Sports/Football/Rugby_Union/. Although I have achieved permissions to edit higher up in these category trees, I have retained these specific categories as these are the categories I like to concentrate on and the ones I feel most expert in.
What have the 41000 edits consisted of? Well, basically, I have been involved in adding new sites to the directory, I think in the region of 17500, updating existing listings, creating new categories, deleting old ones and much more. For instance, I was involved recently in a revamp of the category at Sports/Football/Rugby_Union where the ontology had become slightly outdated and it required a bit of a face lift. It took over a week to sort it all out, but hopefully the effort was worth it as I believe we now have a category more suited to our visitors.
As you can also see from my profile, I am also involved in several projects that are ongoing for the directory. These projects are set up when ideas are thought up for improvements all around ODP. I am luckily the project manager on one and thoroughly enjoy the interactions these projects bring with my fellow editors. I have made many good friends with people from all over the world during my time here at ODP and indeed even managed to meet up with a member of staff, from Australia, in Dublin over a pint of Guinness when we both happened to be in the city at the same time.
At the end of last year I was nominated for several Mozzie awards, which you can also see on my profile, including Best Ambassador, Most Long Winded Editor and Most Congenial Editor. I also won the award for Best New Regional Editor, Best New Society Editor and came Runner Up in the categories of Best New Editor and Most Improved Category or Reorganisation which was for my assistance in the expanding of the category at Regional/Europe/United_Kingdom/Scotland/Highland/ which we managed to add over 200 new localities and nearly 3000 sites to.
I also spend much of my time trying to help and mentor newer editors within the ODP. This is a very important job as helping and encouraging other editors is vital to the ongoing success of the project. It can be a bewildering place to be when you first start but when you have the help of more experienced editors, like I did, it is a much more pleasant and rewarding place to be.
Anyway, I hope that this small précis of what I have been up to has been good reading for you and I would encourage anybody thinking of joining the project as an editor to go ahead and apply to do so. You will find it a very rewarding hobby and you will get a great sense of achievement from it when you help to grow and maintain the world's best internet resource.
Take care and hope to see you soon as an editor at DMOZ.
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Hello again from me, laigh, to all the readers of the DMOZ blog. I hope the last year has been kind to you and it has been a good one.
You first met me when I wrote an article called DMOZ...Why I Joined And Why I Love It away back in the midst of time in October 2007. At this time I was fledgling volunteer who was looking forward to a long and varied career as an editor in the directory. I had just been granted permissions and I shared my experiences as a newly-accepted editor. I would love to share my experiences from then until now and to show how my ODP "career" has progressed.
As I say, at the time of writing of the last article, I had only been an editor for a month or so and at that time I had only completed about 3000 edits. I was editing furiously and was enjoying it thoroughly. I was originally accepted to edit in the category at Regional/Europe/United_Kingdom/Scotland/South_Ayrshire/Ayr/Business_an d_Economy/Shopping but by the time of writing in October 2007 I had been given permissions to edit in Regional/Europe/United_Kingdom/Scotland/South_Ayrshire, Regional/Europe/United_Kingdom/Scotland/Business_and_Economy, Society/Organizations/Lineage/Cultural/Clans and Sports/Football/Rugby_Union. The encouragement I was receiving from senior and more experienced editors was vital to my success and I received it in abundance from all concerned.
Where am I now and what am I doing? Well the basics are that I have completed over 41000 edits and I am now listed, as you can see from my profile, as an editor in the top of the categories in Regional/ and Sports/ and also have permissions to edit in Reference/Education/Colleges_and_Universities/Europe/United_Kingdom/Scotland/. You will also notice that I am listed as an editor in Regional/Europe/United_Kingdom/, Regional/Europe/United_Kingdom/Scotland/, Regional/North_America/United_States/ and Sports/Football/Rugby_Union/. Although I have achieved permissions to edit higher up in these category trees, I have retained these specific categories as these are the categories I like to concentrate on and the ones I feel most expert in.
What have the 41000 edits consisted of? Well, basically, I have been involved in adding new sites to the directory, I think in the region of 17500, updating existing listings, creating new categories, deleting old ones and much more. For instance, I was involved recently in a revamp of the category at Sports/Football/Rugby_Union where the ontology had become slightly outdated and it required a bit of a face lift. It took over a week to sort it all out, but hopefully the effort was worth it as I believe we now have a category more suited to our visitors.
As you can also see from my profile, I am also involved in several projects that are ongoing for the directory. These projects are set up when ideas are thought up for improvements all around ODP. I am luckily the project manager on one and thoroughly enjoy the interactions these projects bring with my fellow editors. I have made many good friends with people from all over the world during my time here at ODP and indeed even managed to meet up with a member of staff, from Australia, in Dublin over a pint of Guinness when we both happened to be in the city at the same time.
At the end of last year I was nominated for several Mozzie awards, which you can also see on my profile, including Best Ambassador, Most Long Winded Editor and Most Congenial Editor. I also won the award for Best New Regional Editor, Best New Society Editor and came Runner Up in the categories of Best New Editor and Most Improved Category or Reorganisation which was for my assistance in the expanding of the category at Regional/Europe/United_Kingdom/Scotland/Highland/ which we managed to add over 200 new localities and nearly 3000 sites to.
I also spend much of my time trying to help and mentor newer editors within the ODP. This is a very important job as helping and encouraging other editors is vital to the ongoing success of the project. It can be a bewildering place to be when you first start but when you have the help of more experienced editors, like I did, it is a much more pleasant and rewarding place to be.
Anyway, I hope that this small précis of what I have been up to has been good reading for you and I would encourage anybody thinking of joining the project as an editor to go ahead and apply to do so. You will find it a very rewarding hobby and you will get a great sense of achievement from it when you help to grow and maintain the world's best internet resource.
Take care and hope to see you soon as an editor at DMOZ.
1. Hi laigh,
Congratulations! It was quite a year - 41,000 edits! I am trying to wrap my brain around this number.
I became an editor at the same time. When you were commenting on my greens, I assumed that you had much longer experience with ODP.
Good luck
tech
Posted at 8:51PM on Oct 24th 2008 by tech
2. Excellent post Laigh. Looks like you're doing a good job there, and that's a pretty impressive run in just a year.
Kudos to Emily Kayser for a post a week in the blog for 4 weeks. :-)
Regards ~ Rob
Posted at 12:45AM on Oct 26th 2008 by robjones
3. This is a great post, and encouragement for new editors in the Open Directory. 41,000 edits, I don't know for sure bit that seems like an awful lot. I would be interested to know how much time you spend editing per week.
Posted at 4:08PM on Oct 26th 2008 by The Golfaholic
4. @Golfaholic
Thank you for your comments. Remember that the number of edits also includes moving sites around within the directory and tidying up already listed as well as other tasks and not only listing new sites.
In answer to your basic question, I spent quite a bit of time editing, sometimes up to 12 hours a day when the mood took me. You can definitely do a fair few edits in 12 hours !!!
@robjones
Nice to see you and thank you for your comments. Emily is certainly doing a great job with the blog.
Posted at 10:13AM on Oct 27th 2008 by laigh
5. @tech
Obviously I talk a good game then. :) LOL!!!
Posted at 10:15AM on Oct 27th 2008 by laigh
6. Thank you for this information - it shows that ODP is still alive - I am wondering if you could pass word on that there is a backup of listings waiting to be added here in Italy dating back at least 2 years. I'd be glad to share more information about how bad the situation is here ...
Posted at 6:34AM on Oct 28th 2008 by Sante
7. congratulation! It is a great achievement!!
Posted at 2:02PM on Oct 30th 2008 by stefan
8. Hi Laigh,
Congrats for the Mozzie awards and outstanding achievement u have got in life. I m inspired by ur achievements and i know its not an easy job.
Will follow u :)
Thanx
Posted at 11:15AM on Nov 2nd 2008 by Pravish Thomas
9. It looks like you have done a great job. The most beautiful aspect of this post is when you talk about helping the new editors that the great step to take, because in this connection, you are both helping the editor in order to learn more and making ODP a great place.
When you are positive – It all goes fine.
Congratulations for all the awards and wishing you a pleasant permanent stay ahead in ODP.
Congrats once again!
Tina
Posted at 8:16AM on Nov 7th 2008 by Tina
10. From one of the Editors that was privelaged enough to have you as a Mentor, I can only state how thankful I am.
Without your patience, time and effort, I would not have been able to enjoy editing, as I do today.
Thanks Laigh.
Snooks. (Editor name)
Posted at 3:47AM on Nov 8th 2008 by penrithcuesports
11. Dmoz is very use full site for internet providers.
thanks
Posted at 4:59AM on Dec 15th 2008 by suresh