uni week 07

Uni was a bit of a non-event this week due to still having flu and or a cold.

A visit to the doctors resulted in a course of antibiotics and a sick note, and told to go home and take our drugs. Yes, ‘our’. H has not escaped the lurgy. Hopefully we will both feel better once the antibiotics kick in.

I thought Friday’s session was a field trip to behind the scenes at Scitech, and although I packed my bag to go, I ended up unpacking it and putting everything away again. Just as well, as I got an email after the session was expected to finish to say that Scitech wasn’t until later in the month and I was supposed to be on campus. At least I still have that trip to look forward to and I wasn’t the only one that was confused, but I’m wondering what I missed.

The only study I’ve done this week is follow up some prior reading, including another chapter in Beverly Serrell’s Exhibit Labels: An Interpretive Approach titled ‘10 Deadly Sins and 14 Helpful Research Findings’. Most of which was commonsense, but it was nice definitive list of deadly sins and potential ways to improve the visitor experience.

getting back up to speed

I like sorting and creating order, so being a volunteer editor with the Open Directory Project (ODP) gives me great pleasure.

While I have been an editor since July 2001, my activity has been rather sporadic over the last year. Just three days after I had decided to get back up to speed with some regular editing, in the categories of which I am the custodian - ODP experienced an outage (20 October 2006). Oh noes!

The usual criticism and controversy abounds. Jim Hedger questions the current relevance of ODP in Trouble at the ODP, Rich Skrenta writes DMOZ had 9 lives. Used up yet? , and Curt Monash attempts to separate the wheat from the chaff in Fact and Fiction: DMOZ and the ODP.

I have got the general gist of the state-of-play in the editor forums and had a quick look at some categories (all of which need a little TLC). With the excellent tips, articles, and links to pertinent forum threads I’m sure I’ll get into the swing of things. Also, everyone is being so helpful, particularly in welcoming editors after the Christmas/New Year silly season and prior enforced editing break

Fortunately or unfortunately (depending on how you look at it) much of the forum discussion, editor tools and resources, and newsletters are behind the scenes in an editor-only area. My feeling is that this is like any public performance. The artists, directors, and organisers are busy behind the scenes, but there comes a time when we are waiting in the wings ready to give of our audience, the best.

Public forms were set up at The Resource Zone as an informal vehicle for communication between the public and the ODP editing community. If the information readily available does not answer your question, this is the place to ask. Like many other ODP editors, I usually do not respond to emails inquiring about submissions.

ODP editor Shadow575 is not just talking but getting on with it. I think I will too. I’m off to do some editing.