Are editbots useful/helpful?

1. 94

   vocalcoachposted 8 years ago

   I find these to be distracting and a waste of time. My time is limited on hub pages and I prefer to use this time reading/writing hubs. Please share your thoughts.  Thanks.

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   1. 86

      Marisa Wrightposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      The point with editbots is that they have already made the corrections for you, so if you're happy with their corrections, you don't need to do anything. 
      
      I went through my Hubs when they first came out and found that 95% of the corrections were fine.  Sometimes it had changed a perfectly correct spelling to another alternative, but it was still correct so I didn't mind.  So now I just ignore them.

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      1. 83

         Faith Reaperposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         Yes, being they are already corrected, nothing to do except take time to check if one wants to check.  Initially, the editbots were a distraction, but I guess I am used to them now, and plus knowing they are correcting necessary typos, is a good thing for ranking.  Most are in comments, but I did find one that the editbot needed to be unchecked, as it was a hubber's name and possessive.  That is understandable that it would not be able to read that correctly.

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      2. 94

         vocalcoachposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         Thanks Marisa.  Appreciated your comments. Good point.

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      3. 91

         Sherry Hewinsposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         Even though Editbot is correct the vast majority of the time,  it does make mistakes. If you have few errors, it does not take much time to check them. I found one mistake that I felt made going back to check worthwhile fof me.

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         1. 86

            Marisa Wrightposted 8 years agoin reply to this

            On the other hand - even if you discover the black editbot has got it wrong once or twice, you still have far fewer errors in your comments than you did without them!   
            
            So yes, I guess I could go through and check all the Hubs and get all the comments perfect, but I'm happy to let the editbots do the work because the accuracy is still far better than it was without them.

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            1. 91

               Sherry Hewinsposted 8 years agoin reply to this

               The one mistake I was talking about was in the article itself. They had changed a name "Peter Noone" to Peter no one. In comments, I wouldn't care so much.

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2. 75

   SusanDeppnerposted 8 years ago

   Hi Vocalcoach.
   
   Once I got through the editbots initially, they haven't bothered me a bit.
   
   I had very few personal errors, though there might have been one or two that actually did need correcting, which became a good excuse to update the hub. Most of my bot hits were in comments.
   
   Bottom line, I'd say they've been helpful and have taken, overall, very little of my time.
   
   Now, back to writing...

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3. 96

   Glenn Stokposted 8 years ago

   Most editbot hits are with comments. The corrections it makes help a great deal. In the past I used to delete comments that were written with very poor grammar or misspellings. I found that my hubs did better with Google traffic when I deleted poorly written comments.
   
   Google evidently ranks on anything on the page since it does't know a comment from the main text.
   
   If it goes as planned, now with editbot, we would get better ranking without the need to delete poorly written comments.
   
   So it's definitely not a waste of time.

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4. 93

   Jodahposted 8 years ago

   Audrey, It was time consuming initially, going through all my hubs to check and have the editbot symbols disappear, but as the great majority of correction were in comments I was quite pleased they were corrected without me having to do that. Once they were all gone they haven't returned. All in all probably a positive thing in regard to our staus on Google.

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5. 0

   Bob Bambergposted 8 years ago

   I have always written headlines for eye appeal and content for how it resonates with the average reader, so I really struggle with the concept of writing to appeal to a search engine.  I've had a few white editbots and appreciate those because I want my writing to be error-free.  But I'm not concerned about the black editbots, and don't think the search engines should be either. 
   
   We're writing on the world stage and comments come from people to whom English is a second language, so it's expected that their grammar and spelling not be perfect.  That's part of what being human is all about.  I really find the "un-human" (I'll bet that generates an editbot) part of online activity distasteful. 
   
   The more impersonal it gets, the less time I spend here.  I have a weekly newspaper column that I enjoy writing much more than this.  Things might be different if I understood the technology more, but frankly I don't have enough interest to even try to learn.  For a while, I was updating unfeatured hubs, but even that's low on my priority list now.
   
   Search engines aren't kind to people who just like to write stuff that appeals to humans.

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   1. 93

      Jodahposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      I agree Bob, if Google is as sophisticated as it i supposed to be, surely it should be able to differentiate article content from comments. Comments should not figure in any ratings or reflect on the quality of the article in any way. But everything I have read unfortunately says it does, so until that changes I guess we just have to live with it.

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6. 61

   paradigmsearchposted 8 years ago

   Even though there are zero errors, I have 2 editbots that still refuse to go away. They have now become pets.

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   1. 94

      vocalcoachposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      LOL!  Love your attitude.

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7. 70

   Nanciajohnsonposted 8 years ago

   I have lots of editbot friends and guess I should take some time to read through to make sure the corrections make sense.  I have almost no time lately for writing or rewriting so everything just sits.

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