Teamwork
by tedk1

When I started with dmoz, I imagined a smoothly integrated top-down hierarchy with a chain of command and all the things I associate with corporate enterprise. Instead I've found a semi-random scurrying about of editing spasms reminiscent of Brownian motion. Or so it seems at times. Actually the truth is somewhere in between, and what keeps us from the abyss is teamwork.

No, we are not managed from the top down no matter what anybody thinks. We look to leaders but each of us is autonomous to a large degree. From our first category, we have a lot of freedom to think, innovate, and execute. We're simply asked to work within guidelines. Notice they're not called rules. Rules go with hierarchies and bureaucracies. Guidelines go with collaboration and cooperation, and the thing that makes them work is teamwork.

The ultimate in micro-managed organization is the assembly line. Imagine if someone were to order you to "edit these site descriptions by 5 o'clock so that the distribution department can move them to Health by 6." That's assembly line thinking and it's not us.

We are more like the artisans that the assembly line replaced. In the old days, each artisan could make a machine, or a rug, or a meal, instead of operating a machine that tends to a minute part of the process. Each of us can make a subcategory, charter it, find sites to populate it, edit their descriptions, link them to every cat imaginable, and make more subcats from there!

But we still lean on each other. We get to know that editor A has intense local knowledge, editor B is a whiz with linking tools, C seems to have a handle on ontology, D has real world knowledge of certain topics, and so forth. By checking in with our forum, we intensify our combined effectiveness without limiting our independence. It's the best of both without the stultifying pressure of standardization that bureaucracy brings.

When I started, I saw ODP as a form of distributed computing. I used to think that meant turning over your PC processor to outside control, and in some models it does. But we are much more powerful than that, because each of is a thinking editorial artisan and not just the custodian of a processor and some RAM.

For one editor the name might mean a desire to mow down ten greens a day on average. Another might interpret TT to mean tackling ten site descriptions that need improvement. A third might set a personal goal to embark on ten projects and see them through, clearly not a one-day goal! Still another might decide it means we rate ten out of ten in effort, and leave it at that. The name is purposely open-ended, and is intended to stimulate goal-setting that will benefit us personally even as it promotes the work we do with ODP.

For my part, I've tried to come up with ten ideals we can subscribe to. These are meant as discussion-starters rather than new guidelines, although I've tried to keep the guidelines in mind in suggesting them. But if you like these ideals and would like to help promote teamwork in this way, all you have to do is post to your regular forum with a link to this article, and your own expression of support, long or short. Here are ten suggested principles to keep in mind for Team Ten:

1. Stay committed to quality.
2. Keep a sense of humor.
3. Be willing to consider we might be wrong (even when we KNOW we're right.)
4. Read at least one forum thread regularly.
5. Post to a forum at least once every couple of weeks.
6. Email other editors with kindness and appreciation.
7. Be open to learning more about the technical side of what we do.
8. Help a less technically proficient editor once in a while.
9. Respond to leadership.
10. Lead when you can.

I've only been around dmoz a relatively short time, but this work and this community of people has come to mean a lot to me. If you feel at all the same way, I hope you'll express your support for Team Ten.

- tedk1