I’m an editor for the Open Directory Project, and have been thinking of ways to increase the number of websites that are listed without having to wade through the trash that is what normally gets submitted. The current situation is that editors are free to choose where they edit, and what they do. In fact, this is a very good method because it allows editors to work on areas that are of interest to them. There is no need to even visit the list of suggested sites, much less add them.

Adding a FIFO (first in, first out) system, in addition to the current system, would increase the number of sites in unpopular categories. This system would need at least one editor that could edit anywhere (dmoz term: editall). And it would work better with a team of editalls. The system is relatively simple. The person entering a site into the FIFO would supply the URL, title, description, and category where they think it should be listed. This would be a watered down version of the current dmoz add url form.

The editors job would be to simply decide if the URL should be listed in the category suggested with the title and description. There would be only two options - Add and Delete. Under the delete option, there would be several sub-options to choose from. The URL is not listable, the category suggested is not correct, the title is not correct, and/or the description is not correct. Upon processing of the URL, an email would be automatically generated to the submitter. If the URL is not listable, it would tell the submitter to stop submitting and add the URL to the FIFO blacklist. Then this URL would not longer appear in the FIFO, even if it was suggested. If the URL was deleted and was listable, the email would suggest changes to the appropriate fields, and suggest the URL be resubmitted to the FIFO. If the URL was added, it would say that.

This system has the advantage of putting the weight of correct titles, descriptions and categories on the submitter instead of the editor. While it does not take a long time to write titles and descriptions and to find the correct category, it does take time. And if that time were spent adding other websites, the Open Directory Project would be adding more sites than the current system.

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