jimnoble - 4:13 pm on Sep 12, 2012 (gmt 0)

@Leosghost:
Thanks for your comments. Here are a few bullet points which might aid clarification.

- If nobody volunteers to edit in a category, it remains unedited by humans. That's the nature of volunteerism. However, we do have patrolling robots that remove broken websites from the live directory after for subsequent human evaluation. Most websites go down transiently for various reasons and so there is a period of grace. At the top of every category page is an 'update listing' link. You can use this to draw attention to broken/mis-categorised/re-purposed websites. These show up prominently on an editor's dashboard and most of us give them priority.

- Some 'popular/competitive' Topical categories (gambling and travel etc) are so spam prone that one might have to dredge through a hundred listing suggestions before finding a listable gem. This is no fun at all which is why few editors volunteer to work there. It's one of the reasons why most of my editing is done within Regional categories rather than Topical ones.

- It's a shame that some editors manage to behave in a destructive manner. At the top of every category is a 'report abuse/spam' link which can be used to point out their alleged transgressions. These are investigated by meta editors and are sometimes correct. Mainly though, incoming abuse reports are whinging about lazy editors or are out and out spam. These latter do not get the expedited listing that the reporter might have hoped for.

- meta editors (I'm one) are experienced editors who have shown themselves to be trustworthy and being capable of man management as well as having editorial skills. They are appointed by the directory's admins and have global directory editing permissions. They are the folks who evaluate abuse reports and editor applications, not the editors of the categories concerned.