IMPLEMENTED: Official Hubs should have date published/revised

1. 90

   Howard S.posted 11 years ago

   The early June hub view is showing dates published and revised. Many don't like it, so it may not survive. The argument is completely different, however, for official and learning center hubs. Since comments are not allowed (no problem there), there is no way to tell how old a particular hub is and whether it has been superceded by another contradictory hub.

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   1. 86

      Simone Smithposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I'll definitely be adding dates to those Hubs, Howard S! Great suggestion.
      
      Do keep in mind, though, that when policies / features change, we immediately update LC entries (sometimes things fall through the cracks, but we're pretty systematic about it).
      
      So in general, you can rest assured that LC Hubs are the authority to go by. What I don't recommend is referring to non-official guides, since much of the advice we see people sharing in them can actually hurt one's chances of succeeding online.

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2. 67

   tamronposted 11 years ago

   I don't like the readers to see the date that a hub is published.  We are told to write evergreen content.  How can we do that with the date showing to readers?
   
   The more articles you have the harder and harder it is to keep them updated.  I also don't like readers knowing how many people read our articles.
   
   Because if they see an article with way more visitors than yours they will bounce off your article to visit someone else.
   
   It wouldn't matter if your article was better or not

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   1. 90

      Howard S.posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      There is another thread in another forum discussing dates on personal hubs. This thread is exclusively about Learning Center articles. As I review my initial post, I can see that I didn't emphasize that point (so it's my fault tamron, not yours).
      
      
      
      
      That is exactly the point. There are more articles in the Learning Center than the HP staff can keep synchronized with each other. For example, there are still instructions describing the slideshow in the manner it used to operate before the major overhaul in early 2012. When confronted with contradictions, how is one to tell which official info is correct and which is old, if not by date?
      
      The Learning Center is completely different from personal hubs. No author and no comments are just the start. There are no ads. They are no-follow. And they are supposed to be the ultimate go-to authority for the respective HubPages info.

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3. 0

   paxwillposted 11 years ago

   I think it's a good idea Howard, in fact, I think it should also apply to non-official hubs that deal with how to write for Hubpages.  If you do a search for non-learning center hubs that cover various aspects of this site, you'll get results for a lot of really old out-dated personal hubs.  A new user wouldn't necessarily be able to sort the old incorrect info from the updated info.

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   1. 86

      Simone Smithposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I generally don't advice giving un-official Hubs all that credence. Like I said, a lot of the advice we see shared in them runs contrary to commonly-accepted best practices.

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4. 90

   Howard S.posted 11 years ago

   @Paxwill, I see your point with the unofficial hubs about hubs. I suppose it could implemented in the one category.
   
   On the other hand, the personal hubs have many clues about date and quality. They almost always have comments, which are dated; a few post their own revision dates; both hub and hubber have scores. The number of followers and length on site are also meaningful. None of these evaluative metrics are found on official tutorials and policy pages (while technnically "hubs," I hate to use that term here as it can be misunderstood).

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5. 90

   Millionaire Tipsposted 11 years ago

   Official HubPages articles should be reviewed periodically by the staff to make sure that they are still current.  It is frustrating to see pages about HubMobs and capstone (not sure if that is the right word) hubs, etc.  At the least we should have an easy way to contact them to let them know they have outdated information. Maybe the new editing feature will help.
   
   Having a date may help, but I'm not sure if it will because some old information still applies and some recent hubs may be outdated as new things change.  I know I wrote a hub about HubPages that was outdated in less than a day because they changed the menu. I've updated it since then.

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6. 60

   Randy Godwinposted 11 years ago

   Simple solution, flag the hell out of them if the info is outdated.  Bad advice is simply that!
   
                                          

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   1. 90

      Howard S.posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks for pointing that out, RG. There actually is a flag on learning center pages. I think I used to know that and had used it once.
      
      So that's a mechanism for someone to notify staff that something is out-dated. It does nothing, however, to help the newbie make sense out of confusing pages.

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7. 86

   Simone Smithposted 11 years ago

   Thanks for the suggestion, Howard S.! Each time I update a LC entry from now on, I'll add a "Last Updated" Text Capsule to the bottom for reference.

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