You have a couple thousand edits. You tend a few thousand sites. Following the Guidelines in site and cat descriptions has become automatic. You've had a good run of accepted applications, and are developing a bird's eye view of the directory. You read your pet fora, and may even post where you feel most at home. You're somewhere between wide-eyed and sage.

You're an ODP Sophomore.

An infantry of big brothers and sisters without titles, unencumbered by reputations. With the experience, but without higher responsibilities, you are free to be the heart and soul of the ODP. But, you feel lost at times, staring down the countless hours until you reach five-figure edits. You want to contribute more, and are confident you could, but feel eclipsed by the status editors, and justifiably paralyzed by the fear of making a mistake, or worse, a fool of yourself.

Take courage, friends. Both Newbies and seasoned editors need you; your prudent peer feedback can be the bridge between them.

Visit the Newbie Forum. Their questions are short, and most of the time, easily answered. That's why the thread count in the New Editor Forum is second only to General. At any given login, you can find a 0-1-2-3 response count thread that you could reply to.

If you only give half the right answer, another editor will follow up. If you answer amiss, the kidneys of the ODP will swoop through, call attention to it, and clean up after you. You should be take care not to pass on faulty or obsolete advice to fellow editors, but don't worry about it if you do. If we had an URL for every time an editor stuck their foot in their mouth or gave out erroneous advice, we'd have the entire Internet indexed by now. Even a misguided suggestion can grow into a rich discussion for both participants and lurkers to learn from.

Check a cat for someone who posts a request. It is not difficult to regurgitate advice you just heard last month, as long as you are not too critical or heady about it. Remember, we communicate one-dimensionally in the ODP fora. No one can see your body language, facial expressions, or hear the tone in your voice. Look over your posts for any gaps between your intent and the possible impact on other editors before submitting.

Help our beleaguered Higher Editors mentor the Newbies. They may burst the next time they have to repeat something like:

>kickme, your category is coming along, but I have a few pointers for you.
>Replace all "&"s with "and".
>DON'T capitalize for emphasis.
>Eliminate repetitions of category names and site titles from descriptions.
>Spell out the names of provinces.

Also, getting broader editing permissions depends partly upon your ability to mentor, lead discussions, and your general abilities to get along with your colleagues. If you are interested in moving up the ranks, staff has suggested that helping out the Metas and Editalls is a good way to get the experience and exposure needed to become a higher level editor.

Adult learners need to be told something three times before they retain it. Some folks just don't internalize the Guidelines or Preferred Terms until they see them come to life in their own work. Be that gentle reinforcement. Legend says we're the fortunate heirs of a more humane ODP. There hasn't always been a New Editors' forum nor the Guidelines for standardization.

Help place a site. You know this directory. Your raw search to advise a referral, or a limited knowledge of another language to place in /World might be all someone needs.

If you are too timid to give peer feedback in public, e-mail the editor privately, post a few words of encouragement in the forum, and alert them to the e-mail. If you go behind closed doors, stay with unrefutable advice, quote heavily from official sources, and invite the editor back to the Newbie Forum's cat checking thread for a second look when they're ready. At the very least, welcome the Newbies who close their eyes and click that introduction. Let their next login show an open yellow folder that means someone is out there.

You will start to get private e-mails that sound like the ones you send your uptree colleagues. They will ask you to look over their work because they are afraid of the fora. They will ask advice about getting accepted for new cats. Introduce them to the ODP Library: the Editor Tools, So You Wanna Get Accepted advice threads, templates, FAQs, and the Guidelines. Resources familiar to you are not obvious to them yet, because they are too overwhelmed. Even better, advice on the elusive unwritten culture of the ODP, or sharing the less graceful moments of your past will build camaraderie and confidence. They will be sincerely grateful. Their success is your success.

Don't believe me yet? A testimonial, then! One Sophomore got this note:

Many of you have heard comments like this, and know the lessons that can be shared between peers. Kudos to the brave Sophomores who recognize and exercise the potent power of individual attention. We are the ODP, and if you make a difference for just one editor, you have made a difference in the directory.

Props:

Some of us share the love because we were nurtured when we got here. Others because they don't want a Newbie to endure what they had to. Thanks to abcxyz, the 2K+ editor who took me in before my fontanel had calcified.