And let's think now how the overall ODP quality is built. Far from being an abstract concept, it is the aggregate of the efforts of those in the web community who suggest quality sites plus thousands of us performing our edits in the best way we are capable. Consequently, it's very important to be conscious that each one of us plays a key role in achieving higher quality for the directory.

But…how to make sure we are on the right path?

The secret is to make a habit of editing with quality. It means to naturally apply a set of good practices that will help us develop our skills, increasing our confidence and improving our performance after each editing action.

This can be achieved through adequate training, based on a combination of three elements: the knowledge of the Editing Guidelines, the action of mentors, and the interaction with our peers - fortunately we have many of them willing to help in the forums, and through personal feedback.

From an operational point of view, the first proposed task is to carry out a periodical self-assessment of our edits. Every one of us should adopt this healthy practice, regardless of our experience. During this process, we need to look at our own job as if we were evaluating others' edits. We will notice, then, that we will acquire great expertise if we keep our mind open to learning.

When I try to be clear about ideas or concepts for action, I love putting them in terms of sequences or steps, which make those ideas easy to understand. In this sense, I show here a sequence which suits a wide variety of situations where to identify and take or suggest corrective actions concerning quality is required, for instance, the proposed self-assessment. Here we go:

Step 1: Before doing anything, I think, study, and organize the future tasks. I review the Guidelines, mainly the aspects related to: Site Selection Criteria; Site Specific Guidelines; Editing Style Guidelines, and those specific to the category, if any.

Step 2: Now, down to work on listed sites (the visible part of the directory). Are they appropriate to the category? Do they have relevant content? Are they alive? Do they work well? Are the domains in force? (If not, it will be necessary to send them to unreviewed, for a further analysis, adding the corresponding editor notes). I go on browsing the cat to detect sites listed twice - it happens more often than we think - and mirrors and affiliates, as well. Then, I ask myself if titles and descriptions are clean, without spelling errors or typos, with the right capitalization, regarding the language. Are descriptions neutral (still in the style of each editor), without adjectives, and, if possible, do they avoid repeating titles and category paths? Depending on the results, I make the corrections.

Step 3: I review the Category Charter. I check out if it is clear enough to guide those who suggest sites to the right cat. If it's not the case, I rewrite it (to spend some time on this task will help prevent that the cat is filled with misplaced submissions).

Step 4: Now, I focus on unreviewed sites or greens (this task is great to calm our anxiety!). We have interesting tools to help us out, for example dlugan's Apollo (it's not the only one), which I personally like very much. With these tools it's possible to work the unreviewed queue, deleting multiple submissions, mirrors, affiliates, all kinds of spam, already appropriately listed sites (remembering that it is not prohibited to list them again, if adequate), sites in other languages (they must be sent to the proper category), red tagged sites which shouldn't be listed. In short, if this process is carefully done, you will be able to reduce greens to those which you will strictly look in detail to decide if they will be listed or not.

Step 5: I edit, edit, and edit with confidence (and I tell the world about it!) With the help of the Guidelines and all the concepts learned through the Steps 1 to 4.

At this time, if you feel you need more opinions, you would be able to put your work under your peers' eyes, requesting a Category Check. You will find, for sure, nice editors everywhere in the forums, who will give you a hand with your doubts. Take advantage of their expertise! Anyway, to make this step far more productive, it is important to request it after - and not before - doing your own self-assessment effort.

Right after having gone through the whole process, together with the practice of mining and adding up more relevant sites to the cat, the result will be very positive… and you will have taken a big step forward toward making yours the good habit of editing with quality.

It is clear that, once the habit has been acquired, the number of our successful edits will significantly rise. The conclusion is that quality and quantity shouldn't be seen as a dilemma, which forces us to choose between them. Rather, they represent a set of goals to be achieved together.

If we keep it in mind, we will be making an effective contribution to the overall quality our public deserves and recognizes and, looking at the results, we will get the most satisfaction from editing at the ODP.