Some Newbie Thoughts on HubPages, Stormy Waters and The Way Forward
Paul,
I have read your post and pondered it and appreciate it.
Please excuse the manner some of us approach these issues and take it in the spirit in which it is offered (something tells me you do if you read thru the Mr. Hat thread and came up smiling
)
I'm glad HP has finally decided to extend the "grace" period for gaining "reader engagement" . As soon as the idling program was implemented people have been frustrated with the two month window and wondered what happened to the "let your work sit for three years" and then you will see the rewards. These hubbers were ignored. It was only a whole lot of noise made in the forums that seemed to bring HP out in the open and even now this change of events has not been addressed directly.
Same with the baglog. If hubbers do not voice their frustration (Is this Necessary thread and many more) about these horrible hubs getting to keep their feature status while quality hubs lose theirs then I don't think HP will see these hubs as being an issue. This is a conflict between HP and hubbers from the beginning and it is now when these hubs are not treated the same as quality hubs the noise is getting a little more high pitch.
The same with the G+ button they took off when they change the profile layout page. Many of us pleaded with HP to put it back on...not sure what the big deal is and why they are so stubborn about us not having it? Again, you just don't get answers back at you. It is as if HP does not realize you are a real person. I really do think at times in their minds we are little one dimensional avatars when and if they finally give us answers.
Thanks for "seeing" things.At least you have thought about our concerns as being "real" . Some fellow hubbers seem to just brush them off as "made-up".
It seems with your bit of encouragement they are working on changing their communication with the community. Maybe a flow chart would be a good idea.
Happy HubbingOh, I believe almost everyone is acting in good faith.
- Jane Holmesposted 11 years ago
0 WriteAngled, I entirely understand your frustration and do want to say that any appearance of doublespeak is unintentional (though I know you have no grounds to believe me).
Our quality system is not perfect. It's a work in progress. Yes, things are still falling through the cracks, and we're working at full speed to try to catch them.
NOT everything is welcome on HubPages so long as it gains traffic. We have both un-published AND un-Featured many Hubs that used to make a lot of money. It is risky for us, but we're doing it.
These things just take time. We appreciate your patience, and I'm glad you're still here and you still care enough to share your thoughts with us. That means a lot to me.
Thanks Paul, and I'd like you to realize I have nothing against you or your attempts to make things better here. And no, you certainly cannot understand completely what many of us have gone through since Google has slapped HP so hard for the spun junk and other spammy articles which, by the way, is still here on the site.
No matter what excuses HP has given for letting them remain on site they are still here and still causing Google to downgrade our work. Personally, I'm not going to trust HP until they do something to get rid of this dross. I'm lucky that I don't have to buy into the excuses made by TPTB simply to make a few coins here, but I realize others are not so fortunate and have no option but to do so.
I also realize HP is business--how can I not with this being used as an excuse for their questionable actions lately by so many of their protagonists--but sadly, merely because it is a business is no excuse at all as there are plenty of bad businesses around today. And in my opinion, some should simply go the way of the dinosaur and close their doors if they cannot treat their writers with more respect. Hubspeak is an insulting way of trying to spin the actual meaning of words which they are reluctant to use and nothing less.
Simone herself has not been here long. I appreciate her trying to help things out but she has no clue as to what others--many of them long gone now because of the way HP treated them--experienced while on this site. And as others have pointed out, I do care about HP despite what some infer about my questioning the way things are going now. Not for HP, not much anymore, but for the good people who have placed their hard work into HP's hands and been betrayed for their efforts.
And yes, HP needs some sort of public relations person who can actually answer questions by the writers and not simply talk to them in some sort of code which only makes things seem more suspect. I'm sorry, but there is no one here who has the ability to do this effectively. Not Simone, not Paul E, and especially not the tech guys who certainly don't claim to be writers.
My suggestion is for HP to be honest with the members. Yes, I realize this is a new concept for HP, but I wish they would try it sometimes. I would have a lot more respect for them if sometimes they would answer, "we don't know" instead of trying to act as if they do. And really, I don't think they do know.
Yes, I've heard the suggestion it would put the "ultra secret algorithms" in jeopardy, but this seems a bit silly, because as as far as I can tell, there are no other companies clamoring to copy a failing enterprise. This same excuse is used by Helium and other content farms and is laughed at as the excuse is here.
But I've had my say here. The old saying "walk a mile in my shoes" is particularly apt in this situation, especially to those of you who are still crawling. Y'all have a good day now, ya heah.
Note: This post turned out way, way, too long; but it covers a lot of stuff I've been wanting to say for a long time. But, because I know a lot of people aren't going to read all this; I've separated it with a line. My main point is above the line. The rest of my post is just thought-spewing/stewing, venting, etc. etc. You know what set me off on the venting thing, though: The comment about how HubPages is a business (the comment, not the individual OP in particular, by the way).
I always appreciate, respect and value a thread that aims for real discussion/substance on these forums; and with regard to the OP's suggestions for HP might do, I'm not even addressing that half of the post. I don't see it as aimed at me. I certainly see nothing particularly wrong with the suggestions, though. I can only justify/explain the length of my post here by pointing out the length of the original thread and mentioning that if someone apparently on HP for such a relatively short time has come up with all these issues to mention, one can only imagine what a few years of build-up of issues-without-really-airing might result in. (This is in NO WAY a dig at anyone who hasn't been on this site for very long. How long someone has been on a site certainly is no reflection of his capacity to come up with sound ideas and/or with as much right to share them as anyone "older" has.)
The top part of the post, though, is essentially aimed at "the general public". Since I fall under that I'd like to point out something about that whole "HubPages is a business" thing that we see on here, over and over again (as if everyone who doesn't come across on here as "all commercial" doesn't already know that or, worse, as if people whose APPARENT focus and overall approach doesn't clearly give off "business-minded vibes" are clueless about business. I don't want this come across as angry here, because I'm just offering my version of "straight talk" to this thread; but, honestly, if I see yet one more Hub, or one more forum thread or post, that "wisely" informs everyone else that HubPages and/or the Internet "is a business" my head just my explode.
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I really think that (and give people credit for) that most people are more than well aware that HubPages is a business. In both the offline world and online world there is often the tendency for people who eat and sleep business-talk, and who are engaged in very commercial efforts/approaches in their work to assume that anyone who doesn't come across the same way is clueless about business, finance, marketing, etc. etc. I know that nobody who doesn't know how often this over-used and well worn "information" ("HubPages is a business") has been mentioned is directing it at me, personally; and I know people mean well with their "news flashes" about it; but I really suspect that the vast majority of people (at least the grown-ups and those who write reasonably decent material, regardless of what kind it is) are more than well aware of the fact that - here goes again - HubPages is a business. There are the people who don't seem to care a whole lot about earning or traffic or whether HP is a business. They aren't generally the ones who are voicing complaints/concerns/questions (etc.) about the state-of-affairs with traffic and changes. People who are concerned with traffic or whether their Hubs are viewed as "high quality" or "stellar" are generally more than well aware that this site is a business; and are often people who have made their own online-writing business by being on a number of sites like this - not just this one.
I came from a corporate environment in a good-sized company before I started my own little "take-projects-from-home" business when I went from having one child to starting to have more. I set up my whole, little, business; and I spent a whole lot of time studying up on the very different angle of business (one-person business) than the aspects associated with working at good sized corporation (where my own projects related to marketing, scientific areas, medical products/procedures, corporate planning and new ventures). I'd also written for newspapers and edited scientific materials for publication. Separate from all that, I'd been collecting a bunch of writing with the idea of marketing it when children weren't quite so young (and when I therefore would have the time to include marketing into whatever else I was doing), so I spent a lot of time learning about that aspect of freelance writing.
So, when I first started writing online I wasn't clueless about business OR writing. It wasn't all that long ago that I first started writing online, and I was pretty much horrified at the cesspool that was the Internet. People who even dared to raise the matter of grammar, or who dared to write anything longer than 400 words tops (and 200 was seen as perfectly fine), generally met with (at best) condescending reminders that "the world has changed" and that "people have changed". At worse, people met with hostility. I don't mean to send out a far-flung, blanket-generalization, insult (because I know a whole lot of people are every bit, and often far more, "with-a-clue" about their own thing as I am; but here goes (and don't take it personally, anyone): I saw the Internet as being full of "technical people" who didn't have a clue about writing, English grammar, and/or human nature; and as people who were under the impression that the invention of the Internet meant that human nature and offline-world business had changed as much as the latest available technology had. Yes, the world had changed; but human nature (and that's what's behind real-world business, whether in the running of business or on the consumer end) doesn't change (no matter how lifestyles do). I also saw the Internet as full of people young enough not to have lived in a world in which everyone had computers in their homes; and who therefore had come to see a divide between "the old, computer-less, generation and a newer, computer-savvy one". I just took the Internet for "as it was" and did my thing, because I figured eventually (and as it became more and more part of the "real" world), the Internet would eventually catch up and "get with the real-world program".
In any case, I had my "serious" writing, which was my business; and I saw the Internet as having potential for "expanding my business" to include writing that I wanted to, rather than writing someone else wanted me to do. I wanted to get away from writing "straight commercial/straight information" type stuff and instead do what so many writers (or just people) hope they they can do, which is share things I've learned about life (in any numbers of areas) with people who may benefit, or else try to help (corny as this sounds) "promote understanding" in a world that I've only really realized is so completely lacking in understanding of others since I've lived the extra couple of decades of adult life that I have. Anyway, the non-business-looking stuff I write doesn't mean I'm clueless about business.
I'm not looking to HubPages to "further a career in novel-writing" , help me to learn how to write better, or give me a new life (etc. etc.). I don't pretend to know anything about running a site like this one; and I pretty assume the people running the site a) know a lot more than I do about it, and b) are doing their best (after all, HubPages IS A BUSINESS
. HP doesn't want to fail). My business is my writing, but I approach my writing business the way, say, Amazon approaches its business: I offer a wide variety of stuff in a wide variety of areas. Google has its agenda. HP has its. I have mine. I'm not going to focus even a tiny part (the online writing) of my writing efforts on someone else's agenda. That may work over the short term, but it won't over my own long-term.
I'm not one who does a lot of complaining about changes at HP. I've just gone with them and don't necessarily think they're bad (for HP or for some writers). I think I'm like a lot of those people who do speak up, though, in really wondering whether SOME of what's being done now may take HP directly into being a major content farm (with lots of pictures) rather than away from it. Maybe HP wants to be the biggest and best content farm online, and maybe there's more money for all involved if that could happen. What I can't "reconcile" (or something) is that there are lists about what Google might view as "high quality" and there is the HP standard for a "stellar Hub". The two aren't necessarily the same thing; and then there's the thing that Google says people shouldn't do what they think Google will like anyway. A recent list that showed up (somewhere on the forums here and elsewhere) includes "something that hasn't been seen before". Maybe "the biggest, and most polished, and highest-quality, content farm" would be something nobody has seen before; so I'd think that might be make HP OK in the eyes of Google (if that's the aim). So that serves HP's agenda, but not necessarily the agenda/purposes of people who don't want to do "content-farm" type stuff (even with pictures and polls) but whose stuff might actually be "liked" by Google (or readers in general, and readers do still exist in the world). This would explain why so many people with decent-quality stuff do better away from HP. I'm fine with the idea that HP appears to be going in a direction other than one that matches my own writing preferences. (There are a whole lot of sites and publications that don't happen to match my own writing aims - and don't judge my "writing aims" by the Hubs I have left on here; I've taken out a half/third of what I once had on here, and that stuff has been the stuff I see as "better quality" writing.) What I think has a lot of HP writers confused or aggravated (or whatever) is that so many don't know what they should be writing, should be leaving, should be deleting, etc. etc. People know what "high quality writing" is, but that doesn't necessarily match the definition for "stellar Hub". People know what's on those lists of what Google might think is decent quality, and that doesn't always match "stellar Hub". As someone else said above, HP doesn't (or can't, maybe) just out-and-out tell people, "Look. We don't want this kind of stuff on our site now. " People are adults. They'd be fine with it. Instead there are often mixed messages from HP. At the same time, these days so much of the community seems to have been groomed (or whatever) into accepting that "a stellar Hub" is the only thing that's not "crap" on this site; so we have good writers being sent all kinds of messages essentially that their kind of writing is crap (at least on this site). It's not surprising, and it's not hard to understand. It can just be confusing to get so many mixed messages, or else to get no messages at all.
Ironically, maybe, people stay because in spite of the "crap Hubs" they've had up for years, they've continued to make money. People don't want to waste years of writing time, so they can be slow to remove all Hubs; and there's always those mixed messages about "maybe the earnings will pick up again". They don't want to invest a lot of time writing Hubs that may/may not be featured or get traffic. I've had my times when I've wondered if I was too quick to delete the relatively few idled Hubs I had; and by deleting some of my better Hubs my profile now has a far higher percentage of Hubs that I hate or am embarrassed by (and see as "crap"). Those, though, are primarily the "information-only" Hubs, and they're the ones that stand the best chance of getting traffic; but as a result, I've got a profile with a high percentage of low-quality writing that isn't going to "appeal" very much to Google's latest apparent standards of quality. A whole lot of people don't really know what they should be doing or not doing with regard to hanging in, bailing, or keeping one foot on boat that could either sink or else take off unexpectedly (neither of which would do much for one's footing).
Either way, there have always been people who know/care little about writing and only know/care about marketing/SEO (as it had always been until fairly recently). Then there are the people who only care about using writing in the Internet-writing setting. There are also those people for whom writing is their business. It's what they care about for work and/or in their free time. When this third group chooses to do things according to their own agenda, or when they focus on the fact that good writing is so often now seen as "crap" when compared to what now seems to be being emphasized on this site (and some of the stuff that does show up on this site, like spun and broken-English, stuff), it not because they're too stupid to understand/realize that HP and the Internet is business. (Again, this isn't particularly directed at the OP here, but at all those zillions of other people who have come before him and made this same, "Earth-shattering", announcement to those presumed to be too stupid, or too naive, or too whatever, to know what's a business and what isn't. (Of course, there are those in a minority who don't really care, or may not be all that tuned into it; but they're in a minority. Again, most people who write reasonably decent stuff certainly know that they've signed on with a business arrangement with HP and that it's all about money for HP and those writers who care about earning it).
A whole lot of people (maybe most) who voice "a big dilemma" about the changes on this site, and who a couple of years' worth of stuff on here, don't need the "news" about HP being a business; and they don't need the (forgive me) condescending comments about rough someone else understands how rough it is to "have one's work de-valued". A whole lot of people just have a build up of a whole lot of pieces of writing on here, and don't really know what they should/shouldn't do about them at this point. It's dollars and cents for a lot of those people (including me)- nothing more. Nobody wants to prematurely or too quickly dump a few years worth of writing, but people who can earn money with their writing (in one place/way or another) don't want stuff, or efforts, wasted and without earnings either. To add to the confusion, masses of those very "commercial-centric" Hubbers were kicked in the head with the first Panda; while those of us whose Hubs were far less commercial-centric got traffic and often earned close to what we'd been earning before Panda. That led a lot of people to think they were wisest to stick with the less commercial-centric stuff (and they were), but then each algorithm roll-out that followed over time gradually hit more and more people and stuff. Pandas/penguins aside, at some point there I just decided to do what's right for me, or what I think is right for a subject or me, a writer; so I have no doubt that some of my own traffic/earnings decreases are because I haven't gone along with what HP is encouraging people to do (if they want earnings/traffic).
Second, eighth, and ninety-fourth thoughts before actually hitting "submit" on this one (I always go between wanting to say what I want but having so much to say that it's embarrassing)..... but here goes.... (Actually, I think I may need to start "a-whole-nother", whole separate, thread to finish up with airing my "general feedback" to anyone who may have a shred of interest in it.
)
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