Ontology Beats

Arts

Recently, the focus in Arts seems to have shifted from large to small changes - editors now seem to be fine-tuning the category rather than making sweeping changes. However, as the category continues to grow, editors continue to find subcategories that can be expanded and improved. Reorganizations have taken place to update Literature, Online Writing, and at the top level Magazines and E-zines category. The Movies/Series category is now just a series of @ links, leading to new categories in the Movies/Titles category. Radio went through a large and comprehensive reorganization, and Comics completed the reorganization that began in the fall.

Current reorganizations include Music/Sound Files and Music/Styles/Rock/Punk/Bands and Artists. New editors in Photography are considering developing the current Masters category, and World editors are helping find Alternate Language links in both French and German. - Jschwart

Computers

A major reorganization of Computers/Internet is currently being discussed in several Computer forum threads. Editors are carefully planning a merge of Internet/Commercial Services and Internet/WWW. Computers/Multimedia/Music and Audio has continued to see many changes and improvements since its November creation.

Computers currently tops the charts with 47.88% unreviewed. Want to help lower this number? Check out Help Wanted and apply for a category. - Shara

Games

Games editors have been working on a number of reorganizations, especially in the Video Games category. The Genres/Shooter category has been examined and changed to fit the category's growing contents. Specific games series have also been reorganized, including the Quake Series, the Knight Lore Series, and the Age of Empires Series.

Reorganizations and changes in the near future include a large number of new sites in the Quest category and possibly in the main Roleplaying and Video Games/Genres category. - Jschwart

Health

In December, Health editors focused their efforts on reducing the amount of unreviewed. As of March 1, 2001 the statistics of Health were: 46,544 sites and 1,068 new, for a low 2.29% unreviewed.

With the success in keeping the unrevieweds in check (about 3%), some of our more active editors have taken up a new cause, cleaning up categories and cat-building. The goal of the Health cat-busters team is to ensure that all sites listed in Health meet the requirements of the guidelines and to help all categories grow by going forth and seeking new sites to add. Our current focus is on the biggest 3 subcats of Health: Alternative (by Mckenzif), Conditions and Diseases (by liloth) and Medicine (by Gkaz). These categories have seen great improvements thanks to the Health cat-busters who have focused on the smaller cats and worked upwards, checked for guideline violations, ontological problems and added related links, symlinks and more sites.

The taxonomy of Health has been stable for the past two months with a few small reorganizations. Health/Fitness/Information was disbanded; its sites were moved to other specific Fitness subcategories. Men's Health has been reorganized so that all conditions and disorders are together in a new subcategory. The plethora of @links in Health/Organizations prompted a small reorganization of health organizations resulting in many subject-specific organizations moving to subject-specific categories. Possible changes on the horizon may been seen in Drugs and Medications and Medical Specialties. - Shara and Brownsmurf

Home

Consumer Information editors are finishing up category cleanups and have added many sites to help shoppers make informed purchasing decisions. This category runs the gamut, covering consumer opinions, expert evaluations, recalls, price comparisons, and some brand name information. Editors interested in consumer information for a product or service are strongly encouraged to read the Category Description and the FAQs and apply to become an editor.

At least fourteen new editors have recently signed up to help edit in Gardens. Welcome to one and all! In addition, editors worked hard discussing and applying the Preferred Terms list to standardize subcategory names.

Cooking categories continue to grow. The ODP provides one of the richest collections of recipes on the Internet. Editors are discussing how to best organize the huge personal recipe collections, possibly along the lines of Personal Homepages. New Beef, Lamb, and Pork categories that have outgrown the old Meat category. Editors who have an interest in a particular cuisine should consider applying to subcategories of Home/Cooking. - Dmozmarch

Kids and Teens

The Home/Kids and Society/People/Teens categories have migrated to the new Kids and Teens directory, and all the editors have brought their bats and gloves to the new playing field! There is lots of excitement about being part of this new directory, and lots of hard work involved, too. Holidayzone, quiltermom, and sready, all experienced editors in the "classic ODP", are the new Metas in Kids and Teens, helped out by lots of talented, new editalls and editors from the original kids and teen categories.

The new editors busy getting this new, specialized branch up and running. They are reviewing submissions, putting the new Kids and Teens guidelines into practice. The Kids and Teens guidelines foster the creation of a kid-friendly directory that meets the search needs of people under 18 and their parents.

Each site listed in a Kids and Teens category is assigned one or more age labels (Kids, Teens, Mature Teens) to help users browse categories for sites with the appropriate age-specific content. Editors quickly assigned age labels to nearly every site in Kids and Teens in no time flat!

There can be links into Kids and Teens from other parts of ODP, but no links from Kids and Teens to the other parts of the ODP. Editors are discussing the possibilities of migrating Kids categories into the Kids and Teens branch from other areas in the ODP. In addition, editors are working on duplicating kids and teens listing that may exist in other categories.

For a while, there was a moratorium on accepting any new editors in Kids and Teens, giving the existing editors a chance to get to know the new taxonomy and guidelines. Applications are now being accepted, however, so if you have an interest in helping develop the largest human edited directory of kids and teens sites on the web, please join us! - Dmozmarch

News

The end of 2000 brought nine new editors into News, filling out areas in Internet Broadcasts, Snow and Ski Reports, and Information Technology, to name a few. The forums have been typically quiet, with the main attention focused on sorting out the distinction between News/Current_Events/Global_Politics_and_War/Current_Conflicts and corresponding categories in History and Politics. - Agskeefe

Recreation

Fun and travel seem to be on everyone's mind in Recreation lately with the revival of a long-dormant proposal to tighten up the Recreation/Theme_Parks/Disney category and efforts to clean-up of Recreation/Travel/Preparation. Last but certainly not least on this front are the Herculean efforts of Travel editors to move lodging sites to Regional. In the past two weeks, almost 500 sites have been relocated. In other areas, Recreation/Living_History editors are discussing the development of a category for maritime and piracy festivals, while the Recreation/Scouting editors are reaching out to their counterparts in World to create a truly global scouting experience. - Agskeefe

Reference

The Journals category is being redesigned to improve navigation to subject specific journals. Colleges and universities often have cultural institutions in addition to museums or art galleries. Editors are discussing how best to subcategorize film theaters and other cultural places found at universities. - Dmozmarch

Science

Science editors have been as industrious as ever for the past month working to add quality sites. Science and Business editors are continuing to discuss areas of overlap and ways to resolve and prevent overlapping categories in these areas. Many sites and categories have moved from Science/Technology to Business. Many improvements have been made in categories covering such topics as Energy, Acoustics and Ultrasound, and Materials. Look for threads in the Business and Ontology forums.

Science forum discussions have covered topics such as complex systems, Digital Audio Broadcasting, NASA, Genetic Testing and Sardinian language. - Shara

Shopping

Editors in Shopping have been very busy battling unreviewed. There has been a concerted effort to add sites and clean up Toys and Games. Shopping/Sports has also seen a great deal of activity. Changes and improvements are continuing to take place in Clothing and Food.

Like to shop? Enjoy looking at online stores? Then Shopping is for you! Check out Help Wanted and apply for a category. - Shara

Society

Society editors have been quite busy in the last month. A major effort to improve the taxonomy and to beef up content in the Native American categories is proceeding smoothly. Several new expert editors have begun working energetically to build out this previously undeveloped area of the directory.

A new top level category, Folklore, has been created with a newly expanded and carefully defined taxonomy. Related categories have been merged or linked and new content is to be added. Be sure to come visit this fascinating new resource.

Senior and FiftyPlus categories are being consolidated to eliminate duplicate listings. Seniors are one of the fastest growing new groups of computer users, so these are categories we can expect to be used and expanded in the future.

Christian denominations are being better organized, denomination by denomination. Editors are tackling the taxonomy of this area, focusing on how to best organize sites that have equally strong topical and Regional qualities. The Lutherans have been very active, writing descriptions, considering acronyms, and working on other aspects to make the Lutheran categories clear and browsable. Editors are discussing where to best place sites about, and in opposition to, Jesus Christ. The result is leading toward a stronger category which encompasses traditional and non-traditional views.

The Society/Subculture editors have initiated a much needed sprucing up. Check out the re-org thread or the category for an interesting look at people's special interests, from Hip Hop to Vampires.

Finally, History editors continue to make progress on the organization of historical information in the ODP ranging from ancient Africa to modern Europe to local history pages. - Dmozmarch

Sports

The Sports category has been full of new energy and ideas in past few months. New top level editors Pattiea and Albovicamp have added their enthusiasm and ideas to Sports, and the category is quickly showing results.

The biggest new category created is the People category, which contains @ links to Players and Athletes categories in different sports. The Events category continues to grow, now featuring Games such as the Gorge Games, the Maccabiah Games, and the Transplant Games.

Reorganizations have also taken place in Cycling and various subcategories of Equestrian. The next few months will bring more changes and development in Sports, including a reorganization in Running and a possible move of many horse categories back to Equestrian. - Jschwart