possible home/infrastructure for site review network

>Delivered-To: fixup-faq-maintainers@lists.consensus.com@fixme
>Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 11:16:46 -0600
>Subject: Go Beta Tests User-Assisted Directory
>From: "Thomas David Kehoe" <kehoe@casafuturatech.com>
>To: faq-maintainers@lists.consensus.com
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>>From: flaps@dgp.toronto.edu (Alan J Rosenthal)
>>
>> There are free "expert" web sites.... although I'm still looking for one
>> I've heard about where the victims^Wusers "rate" answers and you gain
>> points which you use in soliciting answers to your own questions.... it
>
>Here is an article about GO.com, from Search Engine Watch, the semimonthly
>e-mail newsletter about search engines.  The article is copyrighted, so I
>concatenated links for subscribing to Search Engine Watch.  It's about
>$40/year, and IMHO worth every penny if you are a webmaster.
>--
>
>
>
>
>
>Go Beta Tests User-Assisted Directory
>
>Taking a page from the Open Directory, Go is inviting the masses of the
>web to help manage its directory of web sites. Currently in beta
>testing, the "Go Guides" program lets anyone participate in the process
>of categorizing the web.
>
>"To date, it has been really successful. We've received amazing topics,
>real nuggets of gold," said Jennifer Mullin, Go's Director of Search and
>Navigation. About 500 guides are currently involved in the program,
>which will go fully public later this month.
>
>An innovative feature of the program is that guides who do a good job
>are rewarded with more power and authority, while those who do a poor
>job are penalized.
>
>For instance, all guides begin at Level 1, which means that they can
>suggest sites and approve submissions by others, but these actions must
>be authorized by other guides before they take effect. As their actions
>are approved, the guides rise in rank and eventually earn the power to
>do things without needing approval.
>
>Similarly, if a guide with sufficient rank adds a site or makes achange
>that causes disagreement by another guide, a complaint can be issued. If
>upheld, the guide loses points and drops in rank.
>
>These checks-and-balances are meant to avoid a problem that has
>occasionally cropped up with the Open Directory, where editors may sign
>up for categories and then do nothing but promote their own sites. It's
>a nice solution to letting the general public participate in the
>directory while simultaneously protecting its quality. It also appears
>to be working. Mullin said that the biggest problem has not been spam
>but instead educating Go Guides on how to write proper site
>descriptions.
>
>One thing that I particularly like is that you can participate in Go
>Guides without having to commit to being an editor, as is the case at

>the Open Directory. It's perfectly valid to join, then suggest sites for
>whatever categories are of interest to you, rather than being locked
>into one particular area.
>
>Of course, should you want to manage a category -- Go calls them Topics
>-- that's an option, too. New Go Guides can manage up to two topics at a
>time.
>
>There are little bugs still to be worked out, such as improving the
>system so that sites rejected for small reasons can be easily
>resubmitted. But overall, I thought the program worked surprisingly
>well. It was also rather compelling. I planned to spend just a short
>time using it for this review, but three hours later, I was still at it,
>raiding my bookmarks to find new sites to add.
>
>Be aware that there is a delay between when sites are added internally
>and when they appear live at Go -- it seems to be about a week, at the
>moment. And for those of you unfamiliar with the Go Directory, you can
>browse topics from the Go home page - just click on the "Topics" tab
>below the search box. Related topics also appear at the top of search
>results, in the "Matching topics" section.
>
>Also understand that there are some superguides working within the
>system. These are Go staffers that have been tasked with overseeing the
>directory. I find that they quickly review and approve suggestions made
>to even less-popular topics that have no designated guides, and my only
>wish is that they were clearly identified as Go employees. Go says this
>may happen in the future. Basically, if you see someone with what seems
>an amazing number of points, they are probably on the Go staff. The
>chief webmaster question is probably, "Can I submit my own site?"
>Certainly. If your site is of high-quality and not currently listed,
>there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to suggest it. It doesn't
>mean you'll automatically get in, but it does mean that you'll probably
>get reviewed faster than if you used the external submit feature.
>
>If you decide to submit your site, be smart/nice and submit some other
>good sites within the same topic or to different topics at the same
>time. Why? First, it becomes less obvious that you are submitting your
>own site when the submission is mixed among others. Second, by
>submitting other sites, you're actually helping to build the directory
>beyond just your own self-interest. That's the point of the program. So
>pick out some of your favorite sites and submit them along with your
>own.
>
>Go
>http://www.go.com/
>
>Go Guides Beta
>http://beta.guides.go.com/
>
>Ready to participate? Sign-up via this page.
>
>Go Directory Help
>http://www.go.com/Help?pg=InfoDirc.html#submit
>
>More information about the directory, including how to submit if you are
>not a Go Guide. A form-based submission feature is coming.
>
>How Infoseek/Go Works
>http://searchenginewatch.com/subscribers/infoseek.html
>
>
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Received on Sunday, 29 August 1999 11:58:25 UTC