Hub Hopping

1. 60

   Beege215eposted 13 years ago

   I have been hub hopping in my efforts to see hubs that may teach me how to write a better hub myself. But I have a small problem. You either have to thumbs up or thumbs down the article, declare it useful, funny, awesome etc.  there are no areas where you can cite problems with the hub. Like maybe the hub was badly written but served a good purpose. Perhaps the hub was well written but had grammatical errors. Stuff like that. And putting that in a comment area seems to be defeating to the author. There are articles that I think are too commercial and not well written, so I thumb down the whole thing even though it may have what some would call useful content. So I feel like I ought not to do anything with some of the hubs I am reviewing even though I would like to. Any suggestions, or should HubPages change the way we review?

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   1. 60

      saleheensblogposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Few thoughts for you:
      
      ~go to the profile of the author and contact through email.
      ~leave a comment stating your thoughts and request the author to deny the comment after reading.

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   2. 67

      ThomasEposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      It is a bad idea to go hub hopping to see quality hubs, because hub hopping is designed to show you the hubs with quite low hub scores, so people can check if they are abusive / Substandard.
      
      You will tend to see quite poor hubpages.
      
      Go onto the homepage, and check out the featured authors.

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      1. 60

         saleheensblogposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Absolutely wrong. All the recently published hubs of the topics you follow is shown to you while hub hopping. Many a great quality hubs have come across me when I was hopping. The idea of hub hopping is not only detecting sub standard hubs but also finding out best hubs. http://hubpages.com/faq/#

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         1. 67

            ThomasEposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            I very much hope you are wrong, Saleheensblog, because I would find it quite depressing.

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   3. 69

      Cagsilposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      If the Hub is extremely damaged by the language used, because of a person's inability to understand either online etiquette or has not a clue about proper grammar(so badly it hurts to read), then you can "Flag" the hub and bring it to the attention of Staff.
      
      They will assess whether or not, it remains in place.

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      1. 82

         Mark Ewbieposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Seconded.  Poor quality articles damage the reputation of Hubpages and affect us all.  If a writer has genuinely tried and failed, then they can be flagged, and can try again.  More often though there are articles clearly copied, with inappropriate words added, in a strange non English way of speaking.
         
         imo - these should be flagged and reported, and it is worth checking out the author as well.  Just joined?  Half a dozen of the same type of poor quality hub?  Flag the author.
         
         It may sound mean, but if you want Hubpages to succeed, you need to help it.

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   4. 0

      cookingdivaposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      I agree that there are not more choices, and many hub hopping hubs could be substandard. However, I have found some recently published hub they were great!
      
      I like to give chance to people, if they are new, they might write more promotional hubs, but it changes with time for them.

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2. 69

   lrohnerposted 13 years ago

   Beege -- You don't have to thumbs up, thumbs down or rate anything. If you really don't want to make any rating, just click the HubHopping button to move onto the next one.

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   1. 0

      cookingdivaposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Ironher,
      
      :-)

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3. 62

   Lisa HWposted 13 years ago

   I think you may need to separate the Hub from the author, because if a Hub stands out as so bad (with grammar and spelling) that you notice it beyond what you notice about more "understandable" grammar/spelling flaws in other Hubs; obviously, the Hubber wasn't concerned enough about aiming for good grammar and spelling enough to run a spell check, grammar check, or even ask for help from someone.  It's often people who just think they'll slap up whatever they come up with as a Hub and have no intention of worrying about grammar, spelling, or quality.
   
   There's all kinds of help and tips all over the place for people who want to improve their grammar, spelling, or English-language skills (when English is a second language for them).  If they gave a rat's bottom about their Hub or the quality of it, it usually wouldn't have passed a grammar or spell check.  It doesn't take a great writer to run those.  It takes clicking and looking for what shows up in red (and even, in a lot of cases, clicking on the correct version offered to them on a platter).
   
   I know a person or two with learning problems, so I have all the compassion in the world for someone who struggles with grammar and spelling; but those people know they have an "issue" and do what they can to polish up their work with the help of things like a spell checker.  They've found a way around their very legitimate problem, and they've found a way to produce stuff that's as good as "everyone else's".
   
   A lot of people don't care about earning, scores, or traffic, and then some don't care about quality but think they can earn without worrying about quality.  Either way, the chips have to fall with they may when it comes rating up or down.
   
   I don't think a few errors here or there deserve rating down a whole Hub.  A few errors are in a whole lot of Hubs (including my own).  If the Hub just looks like a "big, grammar-and-spelling horror show" - I just have to rate it down and assume the person didn't care.  (Nobody on here is so dumb they haven't yet seen all the talk about aiming for quality.)

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4. 60

   Beege215eposted 13 years ago

   See, that's just it, I don't want to down some writer because of lousy grammar. And sometimes a hub isn't useful, funny, awesome or beautiful, But it is very thought provoking or sensitive or important and should get some kind of recognition for that.  I did leave a private comment for one author that used what I considered excessive profanities and I suggested that if he wanted to be heard he could tone it down from a rant to reasonable argument. And he emailed me that he would follow that advise. So I guess that what I wanted to suggest to the HUB was to add different catagories to that Useful,funny,awesome group. Like Thoughtful, important, or whatever.

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5. 60

   Beege215eposted 13 years ago

   Pardon me, I forgot to thank all of you for adding your input to the subject. It will help me as I work and hop. I appreciate it very much

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6. 80

   mega1posted 13 years ago

   If you want to see the hubs that are really quality - go to Hubbers with scores over say, 90 or so and check out theirs.  You don't HAVE to give a hub a rating - you can simply read it (or scan if it is uninteresting, and go on to something else) 
   
   If you are hub hopping, and if you think a hub is really awful, give it a down rating.  If it is offensive, by all means, flag it for porno or duplicate material or something.

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7. 82

   Mark Ewbieposted 13 years ago

   Just to add to this...
   
   There's a site called ehow or something.  The 'articles' are mainly a joke.  Short and useless, puff for advertising and links.  So when I see an ehow link - I avoid it.
   
   That, imo, is the point of hub hopping.  Quality control at a certain level.  Now I'm certainly not saying everything should be a masterpiece, otherwise nothing I do would get through, but shoddy, short, basically rubbish bits of hubs should not be getting through.
   
   It's a hard call to make, and everyone will have a different tolerance level.  I only flag the truly awful - but I am sure you will now think I'm a mean spirited person.
   
   Well, it's a community thing.

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   1. 69

      lrohnerposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      If you think eHow is a joke, then you obviously haven't been over to Buzzle, Squidoo or some of the other content sites.

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      1. 82

         Mark Ewbieposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         No I haven't.  I just did a bit of wandering through and thought - "I could do this".  Maybe it's a self loathing kind of thing...

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