HubPages, A Writers site or a money-maker for the Company?
I don't know, maybe this is just a disgruntled Rant by myself, alone.
I call myself a Writer. By default, this makes me a Reader.
And, as someone who has the arrogance to think I am good enough to call myself a writer and a reader, I have opinions, on my works as well as the works of others.
So, with these "changes" being introduced by HP, I see something very interesting. There is a fine line any company must walk, I guess, between allowing writers the freedom to present their works for others to read, and regulating what can be displayed on the site. I understand this.
But, as I look at my options for communicating to other writers on their works, I see my options being choked down to one of tow things.
One thing I am (still) allowed to do is write a comment at the bottom of the Hub (article).
Now, as I look at my other options, I can actually just see one thing still left to me, a clear (yet very small) icon at the top-right of each article in my feed.
When I select this option, I can take the Ostrich approach. By that I mean, I am allowed to "HIDE" the article, author, or the category of this Hub.
Yeah! I did once have the accolades. And what so many if us have not mentioned is the fact that NOT LEAVING an ACCOLADE at all was a form of criticism; a polite form of saying "I really did not care much for this article".
And, as a writer, it really does feed my ego to see that someone gave me an accolade or two. Again, I am a Writer, and a Reader, and now?
All you leave me is the capability to allow you and your "article management geeks" to decide what is acceptable or not.
Oh well!
Thanks, Big Brother!
DON- brandonbutlerposted 8 years ago
0 I think this discussion and the changes are going to demotivate a lot of people from writing on HubPages.
It's great to see a thread that's a) current and b) a "real" discussion (as opposed to yet another, "please give me feedback on my most recent Hub" thread (and we all pretty know what many of those "feedback and a link" threads are really about. This thread pretty much looks to me like a matter of pretty much everything everyone has said is correct. Some people have one or another type of Hub in mind, which makes for some differences in those correct ideas; but, for the most part, I think so much of what has been said on here is right.
I always feel like I have to say, "Don't go by my Hubs because I'm making my own changes and figuring out what to clean up, etc."; but I think much of the talk about extremely poor English and spam (etc.) being the crud on this site is emphasizing a more obvious problem (but a problem that can be/is being dealt with more and more).
I think whoever said that some people who write really nicely done Hubs (and I'm not one of them these days) could use some SEO help on their Hub is correct. I think, though, that people could use some clearer guidelines with regard the "add personal experience to your Hub" thing.
Since I want to be really clear about the fact that I'm pulling examples of subjects and styles off the top of my head (and not referring to any particular Hub that's shown up on here in most recent times), let me say that I'm going to refer either to subjects that I've read on here in the fairly long-ago past or else read on other sites since "everyone" has tried to jump on the how-to-improve-quallity bandwagon; OR that I'm just going to make up an "imaginary" example.
Ever since all the talk about things like the appearance of the page and not-too-muich advertising started happening, people have grabbed onto what was being discussed as "what Google liked" and gone with those things. It drove a lot of mediocre quality "underground" among many people who are perfectly capable writers. It was ages ago now that in these very forums there was an example of "great looking" (I don't know if those were the words) blog. When I clicked on it I found - yes - a great looking blog with some really great (and glossy looking) pictures and background. It happened to a food blog (which isn't my thing anyway). But, when I looked at it, it was pretty much a big pile of nothing as far as I was concerned. But, the big pile of nothing was certainly presented in a polished, professional looking, and very attractive way. Upon closer look, I even found grammar issues in some of the limited words that were used not in sparse text that went with pictures but in some "title type"/"navigation type" words.
That one little example isn't the point all these years later, though. The point is that a whole lot of mediocrity and "nothing-ness" put together by people who either knew how to make things look good or at least had a normal command of the English language. The point is that somewhere between a little before then and now, people started to keep trying to adjust and cater to what they thought the latest thing was that Google "likes" or "doesn't like".
It's been years since we've had the thing on here about how if someone has a recipe Hub they need to add a whole, big, story about how their grandmother in Boston used to make whatever the thing was. People looking for recipes don't want whole big stories, so that emphasis kind of went away. While it used to be "write anything if it's useful or helpful it may make you some money" , we've gone through phase after phase of "latest thing in terms of quality". These days I think the latest thing is often the thing about being expected to know, first hand, what one is writing about; and/or to come up with a really, really, comprehensive and impressive Hub that's based on research alone. I don't happen to think the two can be mixed very "graciously" and then be expected to keep any readers more than five seconds.
Where I think I've seen real weakness (in this site) is with that emphasize on personal experience/exposure. (Again, examples I'm "dreaming up"
To me, it's easy enough for people who, say, bake cakes as a hobby, to come up with really decent-quality Hubs about that. Those are the people who CAN offer something solid that isn't being offered by authority sites. I think, though, that even the most conscientious of Hubbers who only want to write Hubs that will be considered "of decent quality", still need guidance with regard not to only to what "solid personal experience" is, or at least guidance with regard to how "some personal experience/exposure, but not "solid") could/should be presented.
With the emphasis on "write what you know about", what has been showing up has been stuff like Hubs about, something like "living with a narcissist"; and then the person goes about living with an ex-wife or ex-boyfriend who "was a narcissist" (according to the writer) for five years. OR, you get the same kind of thing with, say, someone who was an alcoholic. Then the writer will slap on a list of, say, traits of whoever/whatever the problem was (that he got from research that can be found everywhere and anywhere else online, on TV, in magazines, etc. etc. Worse, it sometimes doesn't take long for a reader to figure out that, say, the "alcoholic" in question was someone that the author dated in college thirty or forty years ago (and maybe was/maybe wasn't actually an alcoholic at all). Or, it doesn't take long for a person familiar with the subject to spot that there's, say, a good chance that, say, the "narcissist in question" either wasn't really the narcissist she was thought to be, or else (again) maybe the "narcissism" was a matter of people's being late teens or early twenties and being nothing more than the usual self-centered typical of that age.
Particularly when it comes to subjects that are already well dealt with by authority sites, I think there are ways even the imaginary, alcoholic, college-boyfriend, thing can be presented in a Hub; but I think there needs to be some guidance with regard to how such a Hub would be presented. Maybe the imaginary writer went through a horrible time with that drinking boyfriend. Maybe she's got something to share with others going through that kind of thing. It was only one boyfriend, though. She broke up with him ages ago. Maybe, however, she's dealing with having raised the baby she had with him alone (or that type of thing). How anything is presented isn't the only thing that's important. So is awareness of what, exactly, makes up "substantial personal experience/exposure"
With something like, "I've been baking cakes for forty years" or "I've baked sixteen Halloween cakes", "substantial" experience isn't so hard for the writer to know how to recognize. With subjects that aren't about, say, out-and-out hobbies (or at least, say, the person who has baked such-and-such a number of whatever cakes for her own kids and their friends) it gets trickier. With my examples of something the alcoholic boyfriend or "narcissist" ex-wife or mother (or whatever) (and assuming the person figures out the reasoned, logical, and objective angle) to even a first-person subject); I don't think there's anything wrong with links to more authority sites/information. It's only my own opinion, but I don't think a list of rehashed traits within the Hub does anything for the Hub (particularly when the reader can easily tell that the subject of "living with an alcoholic boyfriend" focuses on all the things that are "wrong with alcoholics", or all the things that were wrong with/about that old boyfriend; rather than on the writer's own having to figure out what to do about the situation, or what she, herself, dealt with.
Then, too, there's the thing about whether the boyfriend was actually diagnosed by a professional; or whether the writer just thought the boyfriend was whatever she thought he was. Again, with the imaginary (and maybe just presumed) problem college-boyfriend; I don't see any point on emphasizing the generic, available-everywhere, information about living with an alcoholic as part of that particular Hub. To me, since that info is already covered on authority sites, the person shouldn't even bother writing from the "research" angle and should focus instead on the personal-experience angle. BUT, to me, if the only personal experience the person had was that one boyfriend that she went out with, or lived with, for a couple/few years way back then; she's got to be really objective about that one experience, AND she's got to be very careful about what she presents as her "personal knowledge" and how she presents it.
Ever since it seemed that the whole "Apprenticeship Thing" and "Stellar Thing" kind of fizzled (for whatever reasons), it's looked to me as if where the guidance from the site has been increasingly needed (at least when it comes to Hubs that people hope will be useful, insightful, different from authority sites but "legitimate") . Who does what with fiction/poetry Hubs or political/religious "talk" Hubs isn't even anything I ever deal with; and I can see how those types of things can certainly have a place on a "general" site. With the Hubs that people want found by search engines because someone was looking for something "solid" (not necessarily "all-gloomy-and-serious", by the way), I think if HP better and more clearly defined all the different ways in which personal knowledge/experience can be defined, the angles from which different types of experiences could be addressed (without straying beyond accuracy, reason, objectivity, etc.) then some of those "underground" quality issues could be fixed by the authors themselves. I don't think that just saying (or reading) that "Google wants first-hand knowledge/experience" is enough for people who are trying to aim their Hubs at "pleasing" Google (and on a site that wants to improve quality enough that people won't immediately click away (if they even click at all in the first place).I think the key points are threefold
1) Sites must first and foremost satisfy the reader - but it's also important to keep the writers happy
2) Every site has to differentiate itself and offer something UNIQUE that people want - with an associated revenue model that stacks up.
3) Every author needs to decide for themselves what they want to get out of their writing and which site offers the best options for them as an individual.
For example, I enjoy contributing to Wikipedia as a volunteer but also like the notion that I'm rewarded for my writing.
I find it highly amusing that HubPages unpublished one of my hubs when I'm the person who wrote the bulk of the Wikipedia page on the same topic which has remained largely unrevised for years. I'm so sorry that HubPages feels no more than two links to the same domain are possible. It's not a problem I've ever encountered when including reference links at Wikipedia!
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