Posts by Emily Kayser at DMOZ Blog

Ever wonder what editors do behind the scenes? What tasks they complete, how edits are made, etc? Editor mollybdenum has provided a great overview of a day in the editing life to help shed some light on the inner workings of DMOZ.
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I have been an editor for about four years.

I started out with one small category, and I was approved for more categories, as time went on, and my experience grew.

There is much more to being an editor than approving sites that have been submitted, and I would like to share a typical day in the life of this editor with readers.

This morning I logged in and went to the editor forums first. I greeted some new editors, and then made a comment in a discussion about the re-naming of a category. A rename is occasionally decided upon, for better organization of the directory, and for easier browsing by our site visitors.

After that, I looked over the categories where I edit.

There were some "reds" - these are former listings that have been removed from the directory by our link-checker Robozilla because they have been inaccessible for a few weeks.

I checked the first, and found that it returned a '404 - not found' error message. I used a search engine to learn if the site had perhaps moved to a new domain. There were no results. I left the link in the 'unreviewed' area.
I will search for it again in a few weeks. Perhaps by then, it will again be available. If not, it will
be deleted or sent into 'Test' for further investigation later.

The next site was also '404 - not found'. There were no results in the search engines. I visited the archive.org website, and saw that this site had not changed since 2006. Suspecting that it may no longer be available at anytime, I left it in 'unreviewed' for a check again later. If it is still unavailable in a few weeks, it too
will either be deleted or sent to 'Test'.

The next red site I checked was working again. I was able to return the listing back into the category.

There were a couple of 'purple' sites. The color purple indicates that a request has been made for an 'update' to the listed site.

In the first case, I went to the site, and found that the company named had changed, which the submitter
had posted. I was able to change the title and update the listing in the directory.

The second purple site was a request for a change to the description. The submitter for the 'Widget Inc." site wished to have the description read, "Widget Inc. based in Widgetville, State, Country, at 555-555-5555, sells Wonderful, Exceptional Amazing Widgets in the Widgetville, State, Country area". I had a look at the site, and decided that the current description, "Provides widgets and components. Features company history, newsletter and FAQ." was more appropriate, and left the description without any changes.

Next, I went to one of the smaller categories, and noticed a typo in the description. I fixed that, and then noticed that another site had capital letters in the description. I changed that as well.

I wondered if this category could be improved. Perhaps I could find a few more sites to add. I remembered seeing an ad in yesterday's newspaper for a site that would fit there. I got the paper, and typed in the url. I spent some time looking over the site, and then wrote a description of what the business does, and what can be found on the site. I added this new listing to the directory.

I then went off to the search engines, hunting for more sites to add. I was able to find three, out of about 5 that
I visited, that were unique and useful.

By then it was lunchtime. My daughter-in-law and granddaughter were coming to visit for the afternoon.
I logged off, glad to have made a contribution to the directory.

Hi Everyone,

DMOZ can sometimes be tough to navigate because of the many designations used to categorize the site. In this post, editor glippit has prepared an explanation to help clear up the confusion about when and where each is used. Enjoy!

Emily

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Although we're one Directory in name, we're multiple directories in fact. Thanks to our large volunteer base from all over the world, we can organize sites by age group, language, location and topic - and we do. Our goal is to ensure that anyone, wherever they are and whatever languages they know, can find good sites selected by human editors.

On the downside, all these directories can sometimes confuse submitters and users.

Let's start with the names of these directories. World is our directory by language. Regional is our directory by location. Kids_and_Teens is our directory by age group. Arts, Business, Computers, Games, Health, Home, News, Recreation, Reference, Science, Shopping, Society and Sports comprise our directory by topic.

So how do you know where to begin looking? Or submitting a site for review?

The first division is age group, and the second is language. If the intended audience is young people (not their parents and educators, but young people themselves), start with Kids_and_Teens. If the site is in a language other than English, move to Kids_and_Teens/International and select the appropriate language. If the intended audience is adults, start with the root directory for English sites, otherwise move to World and select a language.

The next division is by geographic location (place) or by topic (subject). Sites connected with a particular location are found in Regional. Sites connected with a particular topic are found in the remaining top-level categories. Remember: these divisions are within World for non-English language sites.

As you can see, these multiple directories can intersect and overlap. Sites related to mathematics and science generally have no connection with any specific location but belong only in a topic category. Sites of a village's local library or movie theater will have a strong connection with a specific location but aren't likely to be of interest to those looking for information about the topics of libraries or movie theaters. Some sites, such as major companies or sports teams, may be of interest in both the location and topic areas. And don't forget - any of these sites might be in multiple languages.

Let's use the example of a site written in the Italian language about a major publishing company in Italy. It might be listed within both World/Italiano/Affari/Editoria_e_Stampa/Editori and World/Italiano/Regionale/Europa/Italia/Lazio/Provincia_di_Roma/Localit à/Roma/Affari_e_Economia (topic and location for the Italian language directory).

If the site were also in English, add Business/Publishing_and_Printing/Publishing and Regional/Europe/Italy/Regions/Lazio/Localities/Rome/Business_and_Econo my (topic and location for the English language directory).

If they also offer a French version of their site: World/Français/Commerce_et_économie/Imprimerie_et_édition/Editeurs and World/Français/Régional/Europe/Italie/Commerce_et_économie/Imprimer ie_et_édition or perhaps World/Français/Régional/Europe/Italie/Emilie-Romagne/Commerce_et_éc onomie (still topic and location, this time for the French language directory).

It's not difficult as long as you keep in mind the different ways people might look for sites.

Are you wondering about the size of each of these directories relative to each other? We're growing all the time, but we currently have over 2.5 million English-language sites listed and close to 2 million sites in other languages. How many other languages? 80 non-English languages in World, with many more in the Test/World incubator. The ratio is about the same within the Kids_and_Teens directory, with 34 non-English languages represented. Within the English-language directory, roughly half are listed by location and half by topic. Each of the World directories vary, but that seems to be the general ratio.

We all live in an increasingly globalized world, and ODP is here to help.

One of the things we want to accomplish with this blog is to improve transparency and open the lines of communications to all of the groups who care about and support DMOZ.

With that in mind, we asked editors to submit questions to us and then posted a selection of questions (with our responses) in our Ask AOL post last October. Now we'd like to provide similar opportunities to both the webmaster community and to the general public. What do you want from the ODP as a user? As a webmaster? What would make the directory easier to use? A resource that better suits your needs? Easier to navigate? What are we currently doing well that you'd like to see us do more of in the future?

While we can't address every question that we receive, your input gives us valuable insights on what our stakeholders view as interesting, frustrating, valuable, etc. We'll pick a sample of questions from each group and answer these on the blog in a couple of weeks.

Do you have something you'd like to ask? If you are a webmaster, you can email us here. If you are a member of the public, you can email us here. Please keep in mind that we can't respond to individual questions (for example, status requests for URL suggestions) and that we can only consider questions for the post that are submitted via the above email links.