Encouraging people to rate the Hubs they read.

1. 74

   Satoriposted 16 years ago

   Often, we'll be reading Hubs to find a specific answer or solution to something in our lives.  And often, we'll get to the end and be "too busy" to rate it.  This is understandable; I do it too.  Even though I know that by giving a Hub a Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down, I will be affecting the monetary value of that Hub for the person who wrote it.  This is particularly important when people use Hubpages Requests as an easy Magic Internet Oracle to answer their questions.
   
   It would be nice if there was a way to encourage people to rate Hubs when they read them.  Financial incentive is always nice, but I don't know that there's really a way to do that - we're already getting paid for impressions and clicks.  I'm honestly not sure of how it could be done, only that there's a need for it.
   
   The best approach I can offer is that user accounts have a percentage of Hubs Rated out of all the Hubs they've read.  Kind of like AdSense keeps track of how many people have seen an ad, versus how many have clicked it.  If the percentage fell below a certain amount - that is, if users aren't rating most of the Hubs they're reading - it would affect their own bottom-line, by decreasing their own overall score, or their percentage of impressions received.  I don't know where that "extra money" would go, presumably either th Hubpages itself or used to increase the global percentage of impressions that Hubpages could offer its users.
   
   I suppose another idea would be this: Hubpages offers its writers 60% of impression revenue, and keeps 40%.  This is generous, in the marketplace.  Suppose that when users consistently rated Hubs - up or down - and kept that percentage of rated Hubs they've read high, they could qualify for a 70% bracket?  Increased incentive to rate Hubs fairly, and as a result the value of Hubs could be more accurately determined - surely a win for Hubpages.  And this way, people who still didn't rate Hubs wouldn't be penalized; it would be an additional incentive, a motivator to take additional action.
   
   I'd love to hear ideas and feedback about all this.  Let's keep those Hubs rated!

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2. 82

   SweetiePieposted 16 years ago

   It says at the top of each hub, rate this hub.  So it is there, but there is not guarantee people will rate it.

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   1. 74

      Satoriposted 16 years agoin reply to this

      Well, yes.  You have just described the problem for which I was attempting to offer solutions.

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      1. 58

         Mark Knowlesposted 16 years agoin reply to this

         I am not seeing a problem. If people want to rate your hub, they will do.

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3. 73

   Inspirepubposted 16 years ago

   You Hubber Score does fall if you are not active, but I don't think the activity is required in each and every category.
   
   Some high-scoring Hubbers post 2-3 Hubs per week and rarely post in the forums, while others post one Hub every other month but are very active in thumbing, flagging and commenting Hubs and contributing to the forums.
   
   I think it is good that everyone gets to choose their own form of activity.
   
   And I have seen it happen when someone isn't active for a while, their Hubber Score does slide pretty rapidly!
   
   That's incentive enough to stay active, I reckon.
   
   Jenny

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4. 82

   SweetiePieposted 16 years ago

   Well said Jenny!

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5. 65

   darksideposted 16 years ago

   I think that's (Satori suggestion) an over complicated solution to a problem that is irrelevant.
   
   People surf the internet and the majority of sites do not have any sort of rating or ranking system. That doesn't make them any less worthwhile.
   
   Honestly, who cares if someone thumbs up or thumbs down your page? It doesn't make a difference as to the quality of the hubber as a person.
   
   I don't draw any undue attention to the thumbing rating. I know that if I was at a site and the author was asking me in every article they've written to vote for them I'd soon get tired of their panhandling and leave the site.
   
   The fact that a person has been on my page matters more. If they've chosen to leave a quality comment then it means they've read my article. And that's all I want. People reading what I've written. And there's never any guarantees that people will read my stuff all the way through. But even that doesn't stop me for writing and publishing it.

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   1. 74

      Satoriposted 16 years agoin reply to this

      I agree entirely.  It is the content or value of a site that makes it worthwhile.  A rating system merely renders that more readily apparent to users unfamiliar with the site.  This is presumably the purpose a rating system is designed to serve.
      
      
      
      You are quite right; it does not speak to the quality of the hubber as a person.
      
      It is intended to speak to the quality of their work, and that is what the rating system attempts to estimate, and to express.  This estimate affects the extent to which HubPages makes an effort to drive readers to your work, and thus it influences to a certain extent how much your work is read.  It also by definition affects your advertising exposure, and therefore your bottom line as well.
      
      Whether your primary motivation in authoring Hubs is financial or literary, the proportion of readers who rate your work is therefore relevant.
      
      
      
      I was never suggesting that Hub authors request ratings from their users.
      
      I was, however, attempting to encourage an atmosphere of reciprocity, and of consideration for others.  In my examples from my initial post, if a reader chose not to rate the Hubs they read and merely wanted to read Hubs, they would find no drawback in so doing.  If, however, the reader not only wanted to read the Hubs of others without rating them, yet also expected to receive compensation (in the form of increased readership and ad revenue) from their own Hubs, this thoughtless lack of reciprocity and consideration of others would impact them.  Since this sort of mindset is prevalent in the world, implementing suggestions such as I had suggested would not only encourage Hubs to be more accurately-rated, it would also encourage patterns of thoughtfulness and compassion towards others in ways that would affect the world outside of HubPages.
      
      
      
      
      For the reasons I've outlined above, if readership of your articles matters to you, it follows that having them rated would as well.  Consider the classics of literature.  Everyone knows they're classics.  They would still be classics even if nobody had heard of them, because they express something of value.  But a situation in which nobody had heard of the world's literary classics would be a poorer world indeed.
      
      Other than that, I have to agree with your basic motivation.  It's nice to see someone making up their own mind and opinions, and asserting them.  That's become a rare thing nowadays, and I salute you for it.
      
      My assessment of the situation appears to be in the minority here, though for the reasons I've described above I can't think why it would be.  C'est la vie.

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6. 84

   jimmythejockposted 16 years ago

   To rate or not to rate, that is the qustion lol.
   
   Whether a hub has been thumbed up or down it does not affect money earned by that hub, nor does it affect search engine ranking for that hub.
   
   Why Should hubpages lose some of their profit margin just so that users click on the thumbs up link?
   
   Getting a thumbs down though is not a disaster either, yes it may lower your hubscore a little
   but again it will not affect your search rank on google or even yahoo for that matter.
   
   If a reader rates your hub it really makes no difference at all, I would much rather the reader clicked on one of the ads on my hubs if they found the information useful than rate it, that is where the money comes from afterall.
   
   It used to be the case that we could see how many thumbs up and down in our hubstats, but this feature was removed because it was upsetting to some authors when they recieved a thumbs down.
   
   If my memory is correct one of my best performing hubs has more thumbs down than it has thumbs up and it has a low hubscore that reflects this.
   
   THIS HUB
   http://hubpages.com/hub/thejockspot_how … a_catapult
   
   Is on the first page of Google and it linked on many related sites, it gets over 150 visitors every day and it only has a hubscore of 74 as I write this.
   
   because of the number of thumbs down it has recieved.
   
   these are the stats for the last 24 hours for that hub
   
   in the last 24 Hours
   
   Page Views
   
   165 total views
   
   
   Top Traffic Sources
   
   (not all views have a discernable source)
   google.com: 98
   google.ca: 13
   search.yahoo.com: 11
   search.live.com: 7
   search.aol.com: 7
   google.com.vn: 4
   search.msn.com: 3
   aolsearch.aol.com: 3
   answers.yahoo.com: 2
   digg.com: 1
   search.lycos.com: 1
   google.co.uk: 1
   
   Thumbs up may make you feel good about your writing, just as thumbs down may make you feel bad about it, but it really makes no difference to the popularity or searchability of the hub in question.
   hubpages aim for quality and original content pays off, if your hub is original and it has information that people are looking for then no-matter what the visitors will come.
   
   It is also important to remember that when a page gets popular no matter how many people read it you will always get people who click on thumbs down just for the hell of it and the more visitors you get the more of those thumbs down you will get.
   
   Don't put too much emphasis on how people rate your hubs as you can see from my catapult hub it really makes no difference to the stats.
   
   have fun and keep hubbing..........jimmy
   
   I wonder if one of the hubteam could  confirm the information about the thumbs up and down for that hub, incase i am mistaken lol.....jimmy

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7. 65

   Bonnie Ramseyposted 16 years ago

   If there was money to be earned by rating, what is to stop people from just opening a hub and clicking away whether they have read it or not? I think that would be the worm that ate the apple for HP and hubbers alike.
   I don't use ads so I don't make money from HP. However, I do try to rate the hubs that I read but sometimes just get involved in the comments and forget to click it. I may not get as many thumbs up as I would like to have but if they have to be bribed to rate it I had just as soon not have it LOL. Just MHO.
   
   Bonnie

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   1. 69

      Shirley Andersonposted 16 years agoin reply to this

      I agree, Bonnie.  It would be like traffic exchanges...people click just to get something for doing so, not because they are interested in what they're supposed to be reading.
      
      My hubs do have ads, but I would rather receive a sincere comment or thumbs up, than one just clicked for monetary gain.  Guess it's the writer's ego thing.

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8. 58

   virtuallymaggieposted 16 years ago

   So I am fairly new to hub pages.  I have spent a lot of time reading hubs and I have to say, I knew there was a rating system, but thought it was linked to the thumbs up or thumbs down.  I had no idea there was a separate rating system.  I will be sure to look for it now!
   
   Also, I don't think all hubs need to be rated.  There are times when I read hubs, and they are good hubs, I just realize halfway through that I'm not really interested in the topic.  I wouldn't want to rate it under those circumstances, and I wouldn't want my hubs rated by people who really aren't interested in the topic--no matter how well I wrote the hub.

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9. 58

   virtuallymaggieposted 16 years ago

   Ok, excuse my ignorance, but I just went to a hub and clicked "rate this page" and it just scrolled me down to the thumbs up or thumbs down.   Does clicking on the thumbs rate the page  or is there something else that you have to do to rate it?  Again, sorry for my ignorance!

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10. 85

    gamergirlposted 16 years ago

    Rating = thumbs up or down.
    
    It's also nice to leave a comment on hubs you like, especially if you have something (and not a link or product) to contribute to the hub.

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    1. 69

       Shirley Andersonposted 16 years agoin reply to this

       Amen, Charlotte.
       
       The encouragement of a heart-felt comment, be it praise or constructive suggestion, is really appreciated.

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