they turned me down

because of the descriptions i gave for the sites, apparently mine were a little too long, one had 3 sentences

it is really stupid, because i am about as much of an expert as they would ever get for that catagory, as well as being very knowledgable about the internet in general

their loss, that catagory is sitting there without an editor just like it has for years

Well, that's always the choice. Play in their sandbox by their rules, or make your own sandbox.

I'm comfortable with their rules, but then I'm the kind of person who whines about Spartan verbosity. And I'm hyperallergic to hype.

Will just clean things up and try again.

Read the style guide again, look at other listings. Also save the text in the application form in a text document, so you can quickly copy it to a new application form. This is especially usefull for small edits.

I have a theory that DMOZ rejects most first editor applications, to see if prospective editors can handle critizism and rejection.

Repeat until successful.

I got approved upon first try, however the category I applied for got rejected because I aimed too high.

An active editor can move up categories fairly quickly, so no category is too small to start with, if you can add a dozen or two good sites to add to it.

As a matter of interest, do editors have any target number of websites to review per say,,, month

No. There is, in fact, no way anyone could know how many sites an editor reviewed.

You can tell how many editing actions were taken as a result of those reviews. But obviously, someone who can contribute a lot of good edits by cleverly choosing the right sites to review (so that he reviews relatively few sites, all of them good) is the most valuable kind of editor -- because he has a skill that the rest of us would love to learn!

Hmm, pardon me for asking this, how do you deal with individuals who only do 1 or 2 reviews, insert them into their category, then not log on till the next time they wish to exercise their editorial function, for another site that has caught their attention for whatever reason,

The behavior as described is followed by basically all the editors.

Hmm

Does this mean that sites suggested via the suggestion links have at best a minimal chance of getting reviewed as a direct effect of being suggested,

No, actually, it's the fact that 90+% of suggestions are spam which gives "the average suggestion" a low chance of being listed.

But "chance" enters as little into it as possible. It's editorial judgment that gets a site listed. Good suggestions have a very good chance of being taken, bad suggestions have a very good chance of being panned.

All that is pretty straightforward.

The interesting issue is priorities. And they are set (1) individually, not globally, (2) based on surfer interest (i.e. topic), not webmaster activity, (3) by editors, not by suggestions, (4) heuristically, not by diktat, (5) based on perceived shortcomings in the information available (that is, by rarity of content already found), not by a desire to reward copycats out of some misconceived notion passing under the name of "fairness".

From a global perspective, you might as well consider them random but skewed in favor of sites with apparent potential for unique content.

>>>>I have a theory that DMOZ rejects most first editor applications, to see if prospective editors can handle critizism and rejection.

Really,

Maybe I will try again. At this point I am bitter.

I was just surprised I was turned down so quickly for one little mistake.

>I have a theory that DMOZ rejects most first editor applications, to see if prospective editors can handle critizism and rejection.

I don't believe this. I think using formal taxonomies and writing objective descriptions are so different from most academic skills or daily activities that most people don't realize what's involved. It takes a shock to get to the "oh, THAT'S what you want!" moment of enlightenment.

I believe that DMOZ editors follow the guidlines strictly not to say blindly when it comes to new sites and new edditors.
But when something concerns themsevels, what they have done, and the already accepted sites, they seem to interprete the guidilines from a wider prespective.
I am checking from time to time the dmoz forum and recently read a very "interesting" interpretation of guidelines...

No, actually, it's the fact that 90+% of suggestions are spam which gives "the average suggestion" a low chance of being listed.

I can't confirm that for my categories. They are niche categories though.

Don't try to figure out why you might be rejected as an editor. I've got 25 years of industry experience in a category that is a complete mess in DMoz. I'm considered an expert at my company on how the industry is structured – so of course I was immediately rejected.

The explanation was that the category was too large for a newbie. Two years later this category is still a mess. Go figure.

I wound up applying to be an editor elsewhere and have spent numerous hours since keeping my category spam free. It’s all good in the end. DMoz is happy to reject me and I’m a happy editor elsewhere – win-win.

[edited by: BillyS at 2:51 am (utc) on Mar. 7, 2007]

because of the descriptions i gave for the sites, apparently mine were a little too long, one had 3 sentences

...

Maybe I will try again. At this point I am bitter.

I was just surprised I was turned down so quickly for one little mistake.

That's not a minor mistake - Any successful directory needs consistency. The bigger the directory the harder it is to achieve as more people [and their personalities] are involved.

There are very few new editors accepted into categories where "websites" "compete": so there are few opportunities for the scenario you describe.

What you call "competing websites", we call "spam", and list comparatively little of it. We look for websites that have no competition.

Folks, read the Charter. WebmasterWorld is not the DMOZ grievance center. If you have a complaint about editorial policy or practices take it up directly with DMOZ.

As I have said repeatedly, any DMOZ thread left open long enough, eventually - inevitably - becomes a magnet for the aggrieved. Once that happens whatever value the thread had at the outset quickly gets lost. Once again, I find myself regrettably compelled to close out a thread.

Thanks to everyone who added a measure of insight and intelligence to this thread. I look forward to your future contributions.

[edited by: Webwork at 4:47 am (utc) on Mar. 10, 2007]