Once again, thanks go out to everyone (anelder, angela45, artisan, chris2001, crowbar, donwiebe, fantasyf1, gti96, lisagirl, lissa, marcozark, msdetta, mwalko, newwave, qbp, raggedyrugs, totalxsive, tuisp, tutuolaf, yklaw, and the World/Deutsch team) that has submitted content for, or helped out with, this issue. (If your name appears on the list, and you can't figure out what you submitted, it probably means I stole a one-liner off you, or you helped out without realising.)
Are you talented in the graphics department? Would you be able to create some stylish buttons and/or headings for future issues? If you think this could be you, please get in touch for more details.
As always, the newsletter can't happen without your submissions, so please do get writing.
Since the last issue, but still a fairly long time ago, the guidelines have been updated. If you haven't read them yet please head in that direction right away. (OK, you can read the rest of the newsletter first.) You'll notice the new, easier to digest, paginated format.
You can find them at http://dmoz.org/guidelines/, there is a thread at http://dmoz.org/forum/threaddisplay.cgi?t=Forum1/HTML/004566.html.
You may have heard a few comments about the 'RDF' lately. For those of
you who don't know, part of the Open Directory Project's 'openness'
invloves making our data available to download so that other sites can
use it, and this is done by the way of an RDF 'dump' -- a dump of the
data in the RDF (Resource Description Framework) format. For more on
RDF, see http://www.w3.org/RDF/. It also provides the database for the
ODP's search system, and is the basis of the Google, Netscape, Lycos and
AOL directories - for a full list, see
Computers/Internet/Searching/Directories/Open_Directory_Project/Sites_Using_ODP_Data/. Some of the editor tools, such as those provided by theSeeker, also
use the RDF dump as a data source.
The reason why it has been talked about so much is that the process has been failing. In the database, each and every category has a unique number (called a 'catid') assigned to it. However, due to a bug in the catmv system, some categories ended up with the same catid as others, and so the generation failed. This has been happening every week since the end of September, which is why the search database has been producing outdated results.
Anyway, this has apparently been fixed (both the catmv bug and the duplicate catid bug), and a valid RDF dump should have arrived by the time you read this.
Once again, the editor awards have been and gone. You can read more in the (ir)relevant article, or read some acceptance speeches. Congratulations go out to all the winners/runners-up/nominees. Thanks to enarra and vladd for organising/running them, and donaldb for creating the graphics.
Have you seen this hamster?
This is the last known sighting of him, caught on CCTV leaving the dmoz wheel. Hammy, the remaining hamster, is said to be worn out having had to power the dmoz machine on his own for the past two months. Hammy, and all of us suffering from SlowDP syndrome, I'm sure, would very much appreciate the missing hamster's safe return.
If you're looking for some quality Christmas music, that just so happens to be free, look no further than http://dmoz.org/forum/threaddisplay.cgi?t=Forum35/HTML/002258.html.
Have a very happy Christmas. :)
- rpfuller (Newsletter Managing Editor)
