Ontology Beats April

Adult

Adult editors have been heavily involved over the past few months reviewing and rewriting the Adult Guidelines and the FAQs. The main issue has been about which sites belong and don't belong in Adult. In summary, the Adult branch is for sites that contain "erotica as well as sites which show, describe, or advertise explicit sex or sexual nudity with the intent to arouse, rather than solely inform or educate."

Another issue which has been discussed at great length, has been the proper way to list the title of a
site. The Adult branch is often targeted by spammers trying to get their site to the top of the alphabetical listing by naming their site something like "Aaaaaaaardvark..." or " Aaron's." It was decided that sites which have been purposefully manipulated in this manner would have their titles changed to something more appropriate. Words which are misspelled for the purpose of spamming will be corrected. In some cases where the word cannot be corrected, the domain name will be inserted in the title. Overall it was decided that editors needed to use common sense when editing a title so as not to confuse the users just to spite the spammers.

For more information about editing in an Adult way see editor Ffabris' article in this newsletter. Krauss

Arts

Arts, the third largest category in the Directory, continues to grow and develop impressively. Arts features 31 second level categories, representing different types of Visual Arts, Design, Humanities, and Entertainment categories. Many categories are some of the largest and most popular categories in the directory, including Animation, Celebrities, Crafts, Music, Movies, Literature, Performing Arts, Photography, Radio, Television, and Visual Arts. Did you realize that, as of 3/14/2000, Music, with 51,410 sites, is larger than Adult, Games, Health, Home, Science, Shopping, and Sports?

However, Arts is not only notable for large and important categories. Smaller categories such as Arts/Performing_Arts/Dance/Ballet, Arts/Architecture/Architectural_History, and Arts/Television/History stand out as excellent information resources for ODP users.

Recently, a number of changes in Ontology have enhanced the Arts category. In the past few months, we've eliminated duplicate Author categories in Literature and Artist categories in Music; cleaned up and restructured Arts/Visual_Arts/Galleries; and cleaned up and improved the ontologies in Visual Arts, Mythology and Folklore, Photography, and Digital categories. In addition, the Music that Sucks category has finally been renamed Anti-Music and Arts/Regional has been restructured for easier browsing.

These highlights represent only a small part of the constant discussion and changes in Arts, where problems and improvements are constantly being debated. The forums in Arts are the third most active in the whole directory, second only to General and Regional.

In the next few weeks, we hope to complete reorganizations and improvements in additional categories. Editors are currently debating changes to Graphic Design, Writing and Writer's Resources, and Music/Business. Plans for Entertainment/Online_Media and Music/Composition/Composers categories are being developed and will further enhance the growing variety and impressive contents of Arts. JSchwart

Business

While Business has not caught the reorg bug over the past few months, it has gone through some positive changes and improvements. The following highlights some of the major happenings, and things looming on the horizon:

A top-level E-Commerce category was created as the result of the merger of two separate E-Commerce categories in Business/Management and Computers/Internet/Commercial_ Services. The combination of these two categories, and its placement as a top Business category will certainly improve access to this ever popular topic.
Local Real Estate sites have all been moved to Regional as part of the Regional Reorganization. A big thanks to Brendli for coordinating and leading the effort. Regional editors are working to get all of these sites properly categorized and are simultaneously cleaning up categories.
The Fortune 500 list under Business/Directories has been replaced with an expanded category called Business/Major_Companies. This category includes Web sites for all major publicly traded and privately held companies worldwide. In addition, the category will have links to Web sites for major company rankings and indices, as well links for folks interested in researching a company.

Other ontology issues that have been touched upon in various threads, but have not been fully discussed, include Business/Jobs and Business/Directories. The major ontology task at hand is to determine where jobs and directory sites should live, in a central category, or under topic specific categories. Please stay tuned to the Business forum for more information. All Business editors are encouraged to contribute! Rdkeating

Computers

The Computers category is the branch to find information all about that strange box you are using to read this newsletter. It has a great deal of breadth and depth due to the diligent work of many committed editors. Computers hasn't been through many radical changes lately, but a few changes are happening, and have happened, in some key areas.

Chats and Screen Savers continue to be two of the top most searched terms on the Net. The Screens Savers and related customization categories were recently reorganized into a Desktop Customization category. This new category is only two clicks away from the top, and provides a central place for finding screen savers, wallpapers, skins, icons, and desktop themes. A discussion to reorganize the Chat category has recently popped up in the Computers forum. Certainly anything that we can do to improve access to Chat information across the directory is welcome.

Another recent taxonomy improvement made in the Computers category is the overhaul of the Computers/Learning category, now called Computers/Education. The organization of Font sites under Computers/Software is another nice accomplishment.

Stay tuned to the Computers forum for upcoming ontology discussions particularly in the Computers/Internet/Commercial_Services and WWW categories. Some issues to be addressed are the overlap with the Business ontology, the consolidation of the web promotion and search engine placement categories, and guidelines for listing sites in these areas of the Computers branch.

Since we all know something about Computers, everyone is welcome to help edit this growing and important part of the ODP. Editors are needed to fill in many areas without editors and assist with unreviewed. A Help Wanted category has been set up to alert the community of the editorial needs in Computers. Interested parties are welcome to apply. Rdkeating

Games

The Games category is the smallest category in the directory. But small doesn't mean it isn't comprehensive. Games has everything from traditional board and card games to internet and video games.

The Games forum tends to be fairly quiet, but editors work well together in resolving issues. Like many of the other categories, Games has been overwrought with a large number of unreviewed sites. The Games/Gambling unreviewed had reached more than 1900, when editors came in and tackled them - reducing the number to a little more than 900. Other editors are currently working on further reducing the number of unreviewed sites in this category by placing them in the correct subcategories.

As far as taxonomy changes go, until recently, the Final Fantasy Series category had a large and unwieldy taxonomy with 300 sites. Editors discussed and reworked the taxonomy for the category coming up with a solution that has been implemented. Sites were redistributed into subcategories for each series making it easier for both the new and serious gamer. Gracel

Health

Health has been quite active for the past few months. Health/Business_and_Insurance was finally moved to Business/Industries/Healthcare. This reorganization was started in the early fall of 1999. Sites for businesses that serve the healthcare industry are now centralized under this category instead of being split between Health and Business.

Health product sales subcategories are moving to Shopping/Health_and_Beauty in tandem with the Shopping reorganization. This will centralize most of the product sales sites and categories scattered throughout Health. Many editors have been working on the ontology and moves since late December. Visit the Health forum to learn more and find Announcements of subcategories moving to Shopping/Health_and_Beauty.

Health editors also recently decided to move all Multi-level marketing (MLM) independent representative sites to Business/Opportunities/Networking-MLM/Independent_Representatives/. A note to all editors: In the future, please do not send any Herbalife, Metabolife, E'ola or other MLM rep sites to Health, as the categories for these sites exist in Business.

In addition to some of the moves, the Health category has also seen the development of some new categories. A proposal from October 1999 to centralize Reproductive Health categories was revived in January. A new category has been created - Health/Reproductive_Health - and finishing touches are underway. With this centralization it is much easier for web users to access reproductive health topics that were previously spread throughout Health.

A new category for Public Health has also been created. Public Health focuses on entire population versus individuals. If you are interested in helping to build this category, please send feedback to shara.

Another new top-level Health category is Health/Aging. This includes the category formerly known as Life Extension (now Anti-Aging). This new Aging category focuses on aging throughout the human life-cycle.

If you're interested in helping out in Health, check out the Help_Wanted thread in the Health forum. Shara

Home

Home is where the heart is, along with Personal Finance, Gardens, Entertaining, Consumers, and Kids. After several major reorganizations this past summer, Home discussion threads have tended to be fairly quiet. But the editors are still an active bunch.

Home editors often edit in categories related to their Home responsibilities, such as issue categories in Society or product sales categories in Shopping. Overlaps and redundant categories have been the subject of recent threads as Home editors respond to the reorganizations in Shopping and Regional. Home categories also tend to collect a lot of duplicate shopping sites and spam. Site owners try to tap, incorrectly into the Home category as places to advertise their wares.

Home editors are working to eliminate overlaps with the new Shopping/Home_and_Garden categories. Shopping sites such as those found in Home/Houses/Home_Products and Home/Gardens are being transferred into Shopping.

The new Home/Do-It-Yourself category is @linking to how-to categories all over the ODP so users can be guided to the weekend project of their choice.

Home/Consumers is experiencing some growth as well. Content in consumer information categories is being added and the taxonomy is being reworked.

A Help Wanted thread was created in the Home forum to recruit help with cleaning the sometimes overwhelming numbers of inappropriately submitted sites. Home editors have been quick to respond to the call for help and have cleaned out many of the hundreds of sites waiting in Unreviewed. DmozMarch

News

Though News is one of the smaller branches of the ODP, it is one of the most diverse and resource-rich, supplementing the more traditional categories such as News/Magazines and News/Newspapers with those offering multi-faceted perspectives such as News/Current_Events and News/Alternative_Media.

As has been mentioned on several occasions, News is indeed a quiet place, at times offering refuge from the stormier grounds of the more traditionally volatile areas. Though forum discussions have been few, editors have worked together over the past months to successfully resolve several issues, such as minimizing the overlap between News/Colleges_and_Universities and the top level of News/Newspapers/Student, organizing the top level of News/By_Subject under easily-browsed topic headings, and tightening the parameters of News/Magazines/Politics/Liberal by making the distinction between the concepts of liberal and progressive and left.

In late December, an initiative was proposed to consolidate the similar Arts/Photography/Photojournalism and News/Media/Journalism/Photojournalism categories under News. After joint discussion involving both News and Arts editors, the move was completed. Since then, three new subcategories have been created to better organize the expansive collection of 300-plus top-level links.

On an individual basis, the efforts of a small but active group of editors have resulted in a consistently low number of unreviewed submissions and a collection of high quality, well described sites. Whether the surfer is popping in for a quick look at the headlines or searching for in-depth analysis, News is sure to offer a variety of options. Agskeefe

Recreation

Recreation has undergone many major clean up efforts in the past few months. Categories have been reorganized, merged, and prepared for the Regional reorg. All of this hard work by editors has helped to make the Recreation branch a cleaner and more intuitive branch to both browse and search. Major subject areas of note include Travel, Autos, Cats, Dogs, Birds, Food and Wine.

The Travel reorganization has taken many months of discussions, multiple forums, and a lot of editor time and patience. Many of our editors have first hand knowledge of the travel industry and have helped to craft working definitions for categories such as travel agents, tour companies, reservation systems and types of lodging, which ranges from inns to bed and breakfasts to hotels. The travel categories are also being cleaned up and prepared to move to the Regional branch. The new Regional Guidelines have been extremely useful in preparing these categories.

Due to the effort of a small but industrious group of editors, the car wreck of subcategories under Recreation/Autos has been cleaned up. Categories have been looked at and records have been sent to to appropriate places - many records being sent to Shopping. Issues of standardization under manufacturers and car makes has also been a big topic of conversation.

Recreation/Pets/Dogs blazed a trail with a reorganization of breeds. Many dog savvy editors were responsible for a well constructed Recreation/Pets/Dogs/Breeds category where users can find the breed they are looking for in different ways - from an alpha bar of breeds or from a dog type grouping category. After the reorganization of the breeds, a standardization of Clubs and Organizations followed. Other animals, such as cats and birds are making use of the newly constructed dog structure as a template to work off.

Recreation/Food/Wine also underwent a complete makeover. Many wine enthusiasts helped create a template that made it easier for the user to browse wines and wineries by regions.

Looking towards the future, the Recreation editors will continue to find ways to improve both the taxonomy and content so as to create a better user experience. Krauss

Reference

Although Reference is one of the larger categories, with more than 70,000 sites, a majority of the sites reside in two categories. The Encyclopedia category has more than 40,000 listings from four major encyclopedias and 2 subject encyclopedias. The other large category in Reference is the Education category, with nearly 30,000 sites.

Within the Education category, the Colleges and Universities category is by far the largest. Back in November, a discussion was started among the Reference editors regarding the development of a template for deep linking in the Colleges and Universities category.

A standardized template was developed and posted in the category description. Each college and university resides in it's own subcategory. Further subcategorization can be done using the agreed upon template. This template was developed with US schools in mind, but can and should be modified for schools outside the United States. Gracel

Regional

See Feature Article: As the World Turns: A Regional Update

Science

The Science editors have been busy fighting robozilla reds and adding content for the past few months. As of March 14, 2000 Science had 48,237 sites and 3828 unreviewed. By the end of March, Science had 49,375 sites and 3303 unreviewed. For those without a calculator handy that is 1138 additions in about 2 weeks.

There have been a few ontological changes going on in Science. Science/Agriculture was reorganized in late January in order to make more room for agriculture and forestry topics. A cleanup of Science/Social_Sciences/Anthropology was instigated in January. Changes are also occurring in Social_Sciences/Psychology. An improved Psychology section is coming soon to a computer screen near you.

In other Science news, sometime between December 1999 and early February 2000, the alphabar in Science/Biology/Zoology disappeared. The alphabar helps users navigate one of the largest subcategories in Science. For instance, if a user is not familiar with zoological taxonomy they might not know that the Butterfly sites are listed under Science/Biology/Zoology/Arthropoda/Insects/Butterflies_and_Moths. However under the letter B in the alphabar users can find an @link to the correct category. There is also navigational alphabar at the top level of Science to help direct users. The Zoology alphabar has since been replaced. Editors can request @links for this alphabar in the latest Science Rename/Move/Delete thread.

Like other areas, Science occasionally has it's share of categories in need of unreviewed assistance. In January, an editor responded to a plea for help with the category Science/Instruments_and_Supplies. This category had a large amount of unreviewed. As of March 15, 2000, there are 400 sites in this category and no unreviewed. As well, most if not all, all the categories now have descriptions. Shara

Society

Society is a category rich in resources about human interactions and the human condition, from Philosophy to Ethnicity to Dating to Holidays.

Diversity of viewpoints is intrinsic to Society and forum discussions can be lively. Society thread participants use language well and like to talk things through thoroughly. Threads can be heated, but many of the most interesting discussions can be found in Society threads, as the nature of a topic and its taxonomy is debated, and controversy moves towards resolution.

Religion and Spirituality recently completed a reorganization begun last fall, that eliminated the huge Faiths and Beliefs category and moved religions right up under Religion and Spirituality where users can find individual religions more quickly. Reorg fever has now spread to individual religions, such as Catholicism, Hinduism, Paganism, where religion editors are working hard to improve access to their ever-expanding categories.

History editors are working on a major reorganization of the entire History category. Under discussion is the best way to help users find sites by time period, by geographic region, and by topic. The difference between "ancient history" and "prehistory" also has been explored, as has streamlining the taxonomy for Historical Reenactments, sometimes known as Living History. DmozMarch

Sports

Sports is notable for its great variety and number of top level categories. Currently, 98 Sports are represented at the top level. Large categories include the predictable - Baseball, Basketball, Bicycling, Equestrian Sports, American Football, Golf, Hockey, Martial Arts, Skiing, and Soccer. However, Sports is also notable for categories representing smaller and more esoteric sports, such as Airsoft, Korfball, Lumberjack Sports, Petanque, Tchoukball, and, of course, Mountain Unicycling.

Recent ontology changes have included a major development of the college sports category. The College and University category has been revamped, and major improvements have been made to Sports/Basketball/Women/College, Sports/Basketball/College, and Sports/Baseball/College. All three now feature an alphabar of @ links, so users can look for teams by conference or by school name. Softball has been recently divided into Slowpitch and Fastpitch categories, to better serve the two surprisingly different sports. All WWF and WCW Wrestlers have been added to the Wrestling, Professional category.

In addition, Sports/Running and Health/Fitness/Running have been merged to eliminate overlap and create a larger, easier to browse category. New categories such as Winter Sports, Water Sports, and Motor Sports house @ links to the appropriate categories and provide easy browsing for users. A new Team Spirit category has been developed to house information about subjects such as Mascots, FightSongs, and Mascots.

In the next few months, Sports categories will continue to grow and develop. The Olympics area is set for major improvements and developments as interest increases in the Sydney Games, and as new seasons begin for Sports around the globe. And, as always, professional and amateur Sports categories and sites will continue to multiply. JSchwart

Shopping

In the past, the Shopping category has been one of the more neglected areas of the directory. However, in late December we began planning for a major "cleanup."

We realized everything from the top level categories to individual sites needed to be reviewed. The goal is to make a clean and stable taxonomy by standardizing and eliminating duplicate categories to improve the user experience. A team approach is being used to accomplish this goal. Each major category was assigned a team leader, who leads the discussion for their area. A Test/Shopping area was developed as a template for changes to the Shopping taxonomy. And a Test/Shopping FAQ was developed to answer many of the questions surrounding the Shopping revision.

Work is progressing rapidly. The first big move was Shopping/Ethnic_and_Regional to the top level, from Shopping/Gifts, as many of the sites sell more than gift items. The categories were standardized to continents and the coverage of ethnic and regional sites has been expanded.

Shopping/Clothing is undergoing a thorough cleanup as well. Clothing sites located in other areas of Shopping have been moved over and the taxonomy is being standardized. In addition, Shopping/Homes and Shopping/Gardens was merged into a combined Shopping/Home_and_Garden category.

The Shopping editors have also been working closely with the Health editors to identify categories and sites that should move to shopping. The moves and reorganization for Shopping/Health_and_Beauty began in early March.

The latest category to undergo revision is Shopping/Food. The taxonomy was revised to group like items together and make for a cleaner top level. Pets, Jewelry, Music, and Toys and Games are the next categories up for major moves and evaluation. The target date for completion is the end of April, although we hope to come in ahead of schedule.

Many thanks to the Shopping editors for their time and effort to make this a successful project! Gracel

World

Some exciting things are taking place in the World categories. One of the DMOZ engineers, Bob Truel, has been busy localizing the editor tools so that editors across the globe can easily understand and use the ODP. In addition, much of the editor documentation, including the Directory Guidelines, are being translated into a variety of World languages.

The World editors have been providing Truel with some good feedback on the tool localization project, and the editors continually pour a great amount of time and effort into translations.

Netscape International Search will soon be launching using some of the ODP World categories, and they have been working on translating documents as well. The launch of Netscape International Search using ODP data is exciting news for us, and it will also mean a great influx of sites and new editors. Netscape plans to launch initially in the following languages: French, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, and German.

If you have language skills, take a peek at what's going on in the World category and consider putting those language skills to work. Bruns