hutcheson - 12:57 am on Dec 12, 2006 (gmt 0)

>Either change the model to make it more accessible and participatory and get with the masses OR start to wither and die. It seems to me that right about now - with the server and the architecture being examined (I presume) - would be a good time to go with at least a test of 2 or 3 alternative submission protocols.

The server and architecture isn't being examined at this point. Getting it back together with the failsafe server wired in, is surely higher priority than anything else.

But you're still thinking in terms of "improvements" == "priorities and deadlines associated with suggestions". And the editors are, I think I can promise, not going to be thinking in those terms. The editing goal is "getting good sites listed" -- and that can be done efficiently without using suggestions at all!

The concept of "submission protocol" doesn't correspond to anything in the reality of the ODP process, so we can't be discussing alternatives to something that simply doesn't exist.

The ODP "protocol" is very simple, and almost infinitely flexible. It goes like this: editor looks for sites, editor picks site to review, editor reviews site, editor decides whether to list site, rinse and repeat. Because the protocol is so flexible, you don't need "suggestions" on improving it. Any editor can tweak his own protocol, optimising for efficiency or effectiveness or comprehensiveness or personal entertainment value or whatever. Any editor can demonstrate that his own protocol is more effective at optimizing for whatever; and when that happens, that protocol spreads in the internal forums--to any editor who's interested in it, that is. There's nobody (internally or of course especially externally) who has the right to impose a different way of working. Any way of working that builds the directory, and doesn't interfere with other directory builders, is good by definition. And nobody--not ODP admins, not metas or editalls or senior editors or anyone--has a right to tell anyone otherwise.

What intrinsic place does Google have in the protocol? None whatsoever, of course: Google didn't exist when the ODP started out. But many editors use Google (and have their own tricks for getting the most use out of Google).

So then, do we need a "universal mandatory Google protocol"? The very question is absurd.

What I can't figure out, is why the idea of a "submittal protocol" isn't everywhere recognized as equally absurd!