Interesting item about "author content" I stumbled across

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   Vic Dillingerposted 8 years ago

   Someone started a petition to help HP people remove their "author content" and get their earnings when they are considered "inactive" and other stuff. I don't know all the ins and outs but look and see if it applies to you: https://www.change.org/p/kamala-harris- … or-content

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      Solarasposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      She has 14 supporters.

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      psycheskinnerposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      Seems like just emailing hubpages customer support would be a way easier method for getting her info removed.  Or logging in an doing it herself.  A mild hassle, sure, but much less f a hassle than trying to force a very unlikely change in Hubpages wide policy based on dubious claims of illegality.

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         calculus-geometryposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         Just guessing, but maybe she doesn't know the password to access her squidoo account on hp and cannot prove (to HP's satisfaction) that she is the rightful owner.

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            psycheskinnerposted 8 years agoin reply to this

            That problem is solve-able for someone willing to take a few deep breathes and work it through.

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               Solarasposted 8 years agoin reply to this

               It's the same one from before and I think her problem is she does not want to give HP her social security number, so they won't pay without it.

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                  psycheskinnerposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                  [facepalm]

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                     Solarasposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                     I know - right...

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         NateB11posted 8 years agoin reply to this

         +1

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      Elsie Hagleyposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      I'm sad to see this continually on fifteen months after the changeover.
      We were all given the opportunity to sort out what we were going to do with our lens, no one was forced to transfer to HubPages.
      Squidoo paid me in full for what I earned to the day my lens arrive on Hubpages.
      HubPages have excepted my lens, I rewrote my lens to meet HubPage owners.
      I'm a happy writer here, pity some ex Squidoo writers are not happy, let move on and enjoy writing here.

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         makingamarkposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         I think you mean ONE Squidoo writer?

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            Elsie Hagleyposted 8 years agoin reply to this

            Would be nice if there was only one, I see that their are 14 supporters.

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      Marketing Meritposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      This thread is disingenuous to say the least. Vic Dillinger and Rose Webster (Rose Writes) are known to each other.
      
      In my view, this post is here simply to garner support for the petition and nothing more.
      
      

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         NateB11posted 8 years agoin reply to this

         +1000

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         FatFreddysCatposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         (ala George Takei) Oh, myyyyyyyyyyyyyy.

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   Marisa Wrightposted 8 years ago

   I suspect it's the same crazy Squid who refused to do the obvious at the time, (I.e. accept Hubpages membership and then delete her Lenses). I had some arguments wiith her then, she was barely rational.

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   Marisa Wrightposted 8 years ago

   This is RoseWrites.   She didn't want to be part of HubPages but her Lenses were already transferred over.   
   
   She was furious that they'd been transferred without her consent and posted an article on Infobarrel  (which is still there) - where she accused me (and Sue Adams and WriterFox and a few others) of being a HubPages patsy and of bullying her.
   
   All I did was point out that Seth could have simply closed down Squidoo and kept everyone's money, like Today.com (or like Bubblews!), so even if she didn't like HubPages, he had at least given people an opportunity to collect.   She couldn't see it.
   
   She didn't want to join HubPages, even for five minutes, because she didn't agree with the terms and conditions. So she couldn't get on the site to delete her Hubs - and anyway, she was determined not to delete them until HubPages paid her what she'd earned on Squidoo.
   
   So her Hubs are still on HubPages earning money for HubPages - so of course now, she thinks she's entitled to all the money they've earned since the transfer, but she's still not prepared to join HubPages to collect because she won't give them her Social Security number. 
   
   I don't know why she put Kamala Harris's name on the petition.

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      calculus-geometryposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      These are posts made by Matthew Meyer regarding the SSN issue.
      
      http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/133544#post2771400
      
      http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/121547#post2578825
      
      Everyone can decide for themselves if they think her complaint has merit; I think part of it does.  Ultimately she will have to scrape together the money for a lawyer to get anywhere. I looked into it more and what's curious is that her profile says she is Canadian, so assuming that she is not an American living in Canada or a dual citizen etc., then she doesn't have any US tax info to give. She would only need to check the 'no US activities' box or whatever it says.

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         Marisa Wrightposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         I'm curious, which part do you think has merit?
         
         She complains that Squidoo had no right to transfer her content.  Maybe they didn't - but if they had not, she would've lost it all AND not received any of the money owing her.  But immediately after the transfer, she demanded HubPages delete all her content (which they hadn't earned a cent from yet!), AND pay her the money she'd earned at Squidoo.   Where's the logic in that?
         
         Numerous people pointed out to her that she could just activate her HubPages account and delete the lot - but no, she believed their motive for asking her to sign up was to sell her email address and personal details, so she wouldn't do it.   
         
         She says she's been bullied by HubPages, but her definition of "bullying" is anyone who tells her she's wrong!   She thinks any Hubber who doesn't agree with her is a HubPages stooge.
         
         I suspect if she'd simply asked for her account to be deleted, they'd have done it.  Unfortunately each time she has tried, she's also been demanding payment before the account is deleted, so of course HubPages says no.

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            neosurkposted 8 years agoin reply to this

            I agree with Marisa. If you see her articles she has written about HP and the comments in it, it does not take you more than a second to realize that she doesn't want to hear what the easiest and the most logical way to delete her articles is. If you are so fearful of giving your email address to a website, why bother signing up for any website in the first place?

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               Solarasposted 8 years agoin reply to this

               + lol

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            calculus-geometryposted 8 years agoin reply to this

            The part of her complaint that has merit is that HubPages does not strictly need anyone's US Social Security Number or other tax info to pay them through PayPal.  So if HP has record of some balance owed to someone, and that balance could be paid through PayPal, their SSN is not needed.  As the IRS decided in 2013, PayPal is the entity that needs to collect tax info and send 1099 forms (and only when a threshold is met).
            
            In life, people can be wrong about many things but right about something else.  Rose is right about the SSN issue in general. In her specific case, the issue is moot because she has no balance in her account since she never logged in to sign up for the earnings program.

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               psycheskinnerposted 8 years agoin reply to this

               As I understand it when Hubpages pays us, by any means, this is "engaging in a transaction that requires notification to the Internal Revenue Service".  Thus they can lawfully request our SS# whether or not they bother to send us paperwork, they make their own declarations about who they paid out to and how much in reckoning their own taxes.

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                  calculus-geometryposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                  I understand that it's not illegal for HP request currently it and they have a valid reason for continuing to ask for it: the IRS could change the rule again. But, two other US-based businesses (legit ones) that pay me royalties through PayPal don't have my tax info, and they are not so different from HP, so I know HP doesn't need it.   Matthew Meyer's posts that I link above say as much.

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                     psycheskinnerposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                     I don't think either of us knows for sure whether they need it.  It probably depends on how the company is set up, and how they structure their taxes. 
                     
                     It seems just as likely that some small companies ignore IRS rules due to the fact they will probably never get caught or they are not formally incorporated in the US at all.  I do know that several publishers used to not require my tax ID, but about 18 months ago they all asked me for it due to a tightening of regulations--around the same time my New Zealand bank said they had to have it as well due to new federal money laundering laws.
                     
                     More places actually have to have it now then was the case 4-5 years ago.  So much for it not being a proxy citizen ID.

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      Jean Bakulaposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      RoseWrites caused me a lot of trouble too. I had about 15 articles on Infobarrel, which I wrote to be accepted on the site about 3 years ago. I couldn't figure out a way to delete them. I wrote to the administrators several times and was always ignored. People suggested a back door way to do it, but it wasn't working for me.
      
      Then several weeks ago, she wrote a nasty post on my Google + A/C about how I was "trashing IB on Hubpages." I wasn't doing that at all. Finally, after never getting an answer, I did ask if anyone here that formerly wrote on IB was having issues with:
      A). getting any answers from the Infobarrel administration, or
      B). unable to get their work back, or deleted
      
      Finally I played nice with her and she got Ryan to delete my A/C there, so I can move my work to another place if I want to. But she was trying to bad mouth me on both sites. And was pretty irrational to boot. Now I keep getting emails to come back to Infobarrel, they seem to be doing something new with it, but I found it an annoying place to write. If you just correct a typo, your whole article had to be approved again, and the turn around was slow.
      
      I had the whole thread where she was insulting to me, but erased it.

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         NateB11posted 8 years agoin reply to this

         I entirely gave up writing on that site. Whoever reviews articles gets it wrong, corrects things that essentially do not exist, and you have to wait sometimes weeks for them to even review an article. The interface is horrible and is not user friendly. Just to publish an article is more trouble than it's worth. Then you have the various rude people on the site, which I won't go into. I've been contemplating deleting my articles from IB and moving them. Of course, then you have to go through the hoops, as you described, just to get them deleted.

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            Jean Bakulaposted 8 years agoin reply to this

            Hi Nate,
            You have my sympathy, and I agree with your other observations regarding that site. Except for a few people who are very good writers there, many of the people are quite unfriendly. Since it was such a short time ago I had my A/C deleted, you might try writing to Ryan and asking him to delete your account. I'm sure you have some good pieces there which could be moved here, or to a blog if you have one.
            
            Once the administration even had the nerve to tell me one of my articles sounded "copied." It was an Egyptian myth, but there are three different interpretations of it, and I do admit to being too wordy at times. Waiting so long to get pieces approved, or having to let them be approved again for a typo just made me crazy. I couldn't find any place in the TOS that says IB owns your work if you publish there.

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               NateB11posted 8 years agoin reply to this

               I had some smooth publishing for awhile, not many problems, they even approved a lot of articles within a day. Then I started getting these corrections on some articles that were bogus. I mean it was obviously a bogus correction if you just looked at the article; the error wasn't even there. I kind of did a double-take, couldn't figure out what they were even doing. So, kind of got turned off to IB at that point. I have a lot of options anyway. HP, Wizzley, my own sites. Why bother with the IB hoop jumping.

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                  Jean Bakulaposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                  Yes, I really think HP is the easiest place to write, even with all the changes we've had to make. You just have to take them in stride. I used to write on Wizzley too, I just got away from it when I began my own blog, as it was too time consuming, and I had articles all over the place. I now have a different blog, but am deciding what I want to do with it. As far as writing on group sites, I think HP is still the best.

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                     NateB11posted 8 years agoin reply to this

                     Yeah, I totally agree.

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         neosurkposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         I remember that thread, Jean. And all I could see was why she was getting so defensive. There are a bunch of users who are rude at first, and when we reply them back, they talk as if we are HubPages' shills. I like HubPages more too.

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            Jean Bakulaposted 8 years agoin reply to this

            Hi neosurk,
            Yes, it was such a shock to me that she went onto my Google + page and dissed me to everyone. I never wrote anything mean spirited about Infobarrel, I just wanted to get some of my articles off of it. They didn't answer for months. Then I didn't take the bait and argue with her, and she sort of helped me get in touch with the administration. Ryan apologized for what he called a "communication problem" although he ignored me for months. I was writing on the forums to ask others from IB how to delete stuff. I guess she's just one of those people who are never happy. I'm glad to be off of the site. They seem to be making changes on it, I keep getting emails. Thanks for the support.

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               Marketing Meritposted 8 years agoin reply to this

               There will always be people Jean, who choose to climb over mountains, rather than walk through a tunnel, to achieve their goals.
               
               

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                  Jean Bakulaposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                  Yes, that's true. I write about metaphysical topics, and when she wrote the nasty note on my Google + A/C, she said, "Were the administrators supposed to be psychic like you and know when you wrote in with a question?" It was mean, and I had been writing in for half a year to get my articles back.

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   psycheskinnerposted 8 years ago

   I don't have a problem with her complaint.  I don't know for sure whether or not Squidoo had the right to transfer her material without her explicit permission
   
   I do think she is being ridiculous in investing 1000x the effort into protesting it than she could invest in just solving it by filling out a couple of forms.

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      neosurkposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      +1000 x infinity
      
      Her claims that HP is selling our SSN or email address or username or whatever will make you cringe so hard.

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   English-lionposted 8 years ago

   What the point of the video she posted with the petition?
   
   -She begins by saying that she is trying to delete her account:
   -time and date: 1 min past midnight Sept 1 2014 (ok lets give her the benefit of the doubt 1 min to midnight August 31 2014 like she has described in the title on her video)
   Then goes over to her mans servant laptop (conveniently set up besides hers) and points out that her content is still on Squidoo
   
   Here is a screen shot that every Squidoo member saw:
   
   
   
   
   -We recommend you download all your content for this account so you have a backup, because all content on Squidoo goes away in October
   -If you prefer your content not to be transferred to Hubpages then you may opt out of the transfer by clicking here before August 29 2014. all your data and account settings will be deleted
   
   Did she know about the opt out? Yes she did from reading her infobarrel articles she deliberately did not click the opt out thinking she would not get paid for the month of August It was made clear that you would get paid for the amount of time your lenses were on Squidoo

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      Marisa Wrightposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      Hah!  That was the one bit of sympathy I had for her - I assumed she'd missed the deadline to opt out and therefore there was some merit in her statement that Seth didn't have her permission to transfer her articles without her consent.
      
      If, by her own admission, she saw the statement that her account would be transferred and she CHOSE not to opt out, then she DID give consent!     Her reasons for doing so aren't relevant, any court of law would agree she gave consent by omission.
      
      So, the only thing she can complain about is not being able to delete her HubPages account and not getting her money - which are both entirely her own doing, because she has some kind of paranoid delusion about HubPages stealing her identity if she logs on.
      
      No, I do still feel sorry for her - it must be hell to live in a world where you jump at shadows so much.

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         English-lionposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         
         
         Yes exactly. She has morphed it  into I'm doing this for others from Hubpages  and then it morphed again into  I'm doing this for all internet writers and it will probably morph again into something else
         
         
         
         
         
         There is obviously some sort of personality disorder going on here but calling people out using persons real names and calling people names is inappropriate  and unacceptable she knows right from wrong
         
         infobarrel letting her use their forum for her personal vendetta against Hubpages is also out of line

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            NateB11posted 8 years agoin reply to this

            +1

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   popcornographyposted 8 years ago

   *grabs popcorn*

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   Kimberleyclarkeposted 8 years ago

   Oh dear. And I'd never heard of InfoBarrel before...HP certainly looks 100% better!

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   psycheskinnerposted 8 years ago

   I don't think it is an either/or thing.  Overall I prefer Hubpages but I have an IB account.  I am sure many people prefer IB.

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      Marisa Wrightposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      I just read a very odd Hub by WriterFox about Infobarrel. 
      
      http://hubpages.com/literature/InfoBarr … or-Writers
      
      I have a few old articles on IB and I've started getting bombarded with emails about their impending relaunch under a new name - or at least, I think that's what it's about!

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         calculus-geometryposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         Actually, it looks more like a site-wide clean-up effort
         
         http://www.infobarrel.com/Blog/Update_o … _July_2015

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            Vic Dillingerposted 8 years agoin reply to this

            Yes, it is.  Cleaning up the junk, and making it more credible and useful, something HP should consider doing.

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               NateB11posted 8 years agoin reply to this

               HP has been doing that for some years now.

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                  Jean Bakulaposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                  I'm not trying to diss Infobarrel, each site has it's good and bad points. The other writers usually were very nice and quick to help if you had a question. It was the administration that was not answering me for all those months. And although in the end WriterRose and I worked together to patch it up, she did take a few cheap shots at me before we got my issues with IB resolved. I do appreciate that we were able to finish on better terms.
                  
                  I am also getting emails from IB that suggest they are restructuring things, and that's a good thing, not any different that what Hubpages does all the time. Maybe they will get rid of that long process of keeping our articles as drafts, or keeping them in a limbo state for weeks while you are waiting for a typo to get fixed. Any site has to change and improve with the times.
                  
                  As for me, I'm sick of relearning sites quirks, and am moving most of my stuff here. As I do that, I am deleting hubs that never got much traffic, and trying to update some, though most of them are evergreen. I had a few popular book reviews, but people only like them when everyone is reading the book, so they have to go. I have been doing some phone readings with tarot, and right now my own blog is stalled, I can't decide what I want it to be, besides a way to get people to visit me for readings. But I'm finding the phone readings are easy for me, I have to write out the interpretations for online ones, and that takes long for the price I charge. So one group site and one personal one is my limit, I have found, unless I want carpal tunnel surgery that I keep putting off (people have mixed results, it doesn't always help.)

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