HubPro and Other Quality Updates
Any and all content - that's text, images, formatting etc - is copyright to the author. Copyright relates to format as well as original content. So if I choose to write "colour" and not "color" that's the way it has to stay. If I have written for the web - and included bold in my text in order to highlight a key point - then that is the way it has to stay unless I agree to change it.
The only thing that Hubpages controls is the template. The QA system provides for unfeaturing or unpublishing hubs which fail to meet the QA guidelines - it does not provide for editing WITHOUT CONSENT.
If there has been a change in the terms of membership such that hub authors no longer have copyright control over their content then I think we shall see a lot of content leaving the site.
All I'm saying is that ALL changes to the content of a hub MUST have the consent of the author if HubPages is going to comply with the copyright of the author. That's all.
I could refer you to my hub about copyright but it's already left HubPages for a new start on a new website....
No...! Don't Leave Me!
[Update. And everybody is right. You can always change it back. And what with it being HubPro Basic, it will probably only take you five minutes to do so.
]Here's a hub I ran across that might be helpful, or you can give all your hubs to me. Do at least hang around the forums, if for no other reason than we can poke HP with a stick every once in awhile.
I think the HubPro basic could do a lot to enhance quality. I run spell check and all of that, but I will find things sometimes after reviewing it several times. It's also quite embarrassing to click on an old hub to modernize it and realize that you have glaring typos that went unnoticed previously.
An auto spell check and grammar check (especially if it's similar to the WordPress plug-in) will help a lot. A change I can get behindOne of the objectives of Hubpro was to improve the overall quality of hubs to get a reprieve from Panda and so lift the traffic for the site overall. But while "Traffic is up 20% (compared to the baseline) across Hubs edited with HubPro". There has been a decline in overall traffic.
The Quancast stats show that there have been a decline in overall traffic over the last 12 months. Similarly the 3 month data summary does not show any signs of a reprieve from Panda 4.2 which was implemented in Mid-July 2015. Don't get me wrong, I hope that traffic goes up!!!, but there is little evidence that Hubpro is boosting overall traffic. Surely it is now time to focus more on other strategies such as applying QAP to legacy hubs, cancelling 'grandfathering' so that the rules apply to all hubs and applying more stringent quality tests for new hubs . The new 'Latest' listing show that many very poor hubs are still being accepted and these taint the site and mean that the Panda penalties are still applied. I know HP is doing these things but perhaps more emphasis should be places on these tactics. By the way Google has confirmed recently that user engagement, while important, is not a ranking factor. http://searchenginewatch.com/sew/opinio … m-like-one
Make sure HubPro Basic knows to stay away from all math-related hubs; I cringe to think what it would do to my algebra, electronics, base-numbering system hubs, etc. Also needs to stay away from computer programming hubs. Meanwhile, I've turned HubPro Premium back on.
and refined here:
http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/132583? … ost2759303
Team, we do appreciate what you are trying to do but think about it:
Automated proofreading produces work like spinned articles and poor translations. Just one or 2 errors on a page spoils the entire content. Gobbledygook invites suspicion of credibility. So if the aim is to go "Cream of the Web", trustworthy & all, then I would stay well clear of "out of author-control robots" messing with the artform of literature.
Come to think of it, you may, one day, get the robots to write the hubs too. Then we'll all go on the scrap heap and you still make millions
Very funny!
I was of course referring to the past as opposed to the final 18 months of its life when the traffic trend showed a steady downward slope.
On reflection I think the owner made a pretty smart strategic move to exit when he did.
Well actually as it happens I am a published author.
* I had a book published this year by a major publisher in the UK (Quarto), USA (North Light Books) and Asia (Page One) and was reprinted after three months as it sold so well. It's currently ranking around 4.5 stars on Amazon and is being sold around the world in foreign language editions. My book required very little editing by the Editors employed by the Publishers. In fact I do recall having to edit the Editor who inadvertently changed the technical meaning once or twice.
* I'm a very experienced Blogger - my main blog has been around for nearly 10 years, is well regarded by thousands of people around the world and notched up 8 million pageviews last weekend
So credentials out of the way...
You have 23 hubs. You have NO IDEA what it's like having to edit over 100 long hubs for errors introduced by a system which has no default to the author for confirmation of change - unlike every other system used to correct spelling and grammar.
I also don't do 'creative writing'. Can't think what gave you that idea.
I write compendium information hubs and have done for nearly ten years. They worked very well on Squidoo - less so on HubPages because it can't cope with the idea of having more than two links to the same domain and hence some of my biggest and most popular hubs were unpublished. However when the content is moved and republished on my own websites the traffic is tripling and quadrupling - with the bulk of traffic coming from Google.
and your credentials are....?
(Having reviewed your responses I think you might just have a problem in knowing how to respond to posts.
EXAMPLE: There's no need to quote yourself when responding.
If you want to make a reply specific to an individual then use the reply bottom left - this then incorporates and quotes the last response on the post where you hit reply. If you want to make a general comment on the whole thread then use Reply Bottom right)
It's an ideal way to determine the good quality writers who can reach an internet audience well. It doesn't depend on traffic, language used or topic, it measures on how long the reader wants to stick around - the ULTIMATE benchmark
Oh, come on!! Creative pieces are creative - no one is going to be rewriting your poetry for you. Yes, you might have to go through and re-read ALL your stuff after the autocorrect hits to change things back that might change - but, you wrote it once, you can go back and do that.
These changes are HUGE fixes for HP and they are long overdue. Sure there will probably be a little rocky road for a bit while they are being implemented and we get used to them - that is normal.
This is not a reason to panic.
Btw, great job on putting these announcements in the feed, HP - but then you moved the feed, so it still took me four days to see this. I have been responding to 'questions' about this from the main page. The author's feed should be as 'front & center' as the main page. Can you create a tab between the two pages so that we can just switch between them?Also, one suggestion I have with this new system is that this 'basic editing' part of the process should be done IN THE BEGINNING during the time between when an article is waiting to be published and actually is published.
While that is impossible to do with articles that are already written; and playing catch-up is practically a never-ending job - editing them before/as they are being published would:
1) Create a situation where there are far fewer errors coming out in articles to begin with.
2) Makes it so much easier for the author while it is still fresh in their minds. Editing during the first run could be more suggestive instead of actual changes (with the exception of the automation). This could even be a volunteer peer to peer thing with more involved editing coming from HP's editors, later.
Creative folks really should relax... remember on the HP quality page that there is an option between 'creative' and other types of writing. We all treat those pieces with less stringent rules. Spelling always counts, however - unless you're trying to be creative about it.
If nothing else, I think these changes will cause people to make sure that their writing is better before they turn it in - instead of just throwing it up here like so many people do: eyesores that are hard to read.
Writing matters. It counts - especially if you want to get paid for it.An addition... If we started with volunteer peer editors who have a good grasp of writing basics doing the first round of editing; those initial editors could be the first eyes on some of HP's best articles as they are being written - and they could be the first ones to start bumping it up the chain of editors (including Hub of the Day) for more attention and/or accolades.
Every article would get a glance this way - no amazing poem would be missed and every article that should get more attention will because Human eyes can see that it is worthy of it.
Also, it would make it so much easier to vote for this last thing... what was it, Hub of the Year or something like that? I wouldn't know where to start to vote for something that important, so I didn't. Who would I be missing?
However, those kinds of awards could be voted for throughout the entire year; then dwindled to the top 5 in each category for all Hubbers to vote on when the time comes.
Okay, I'll stop now.You don't have to volunteer; and it is not up to any individual hubber to be responsible for anyone else's writing. There are many of us who would volunteer simply because we care about writing and how we all are coming across. There are many of us who voluntarily participate in the hub quality site, for example - just because we care.
The point is, Google is trying to improve on grammar and things like that just like HP is - that may be one of the reasons why they are pushing these editing changes.
As for the current search outcomes... just because someone has something important to say; doesn't mean it is cool to say it in an unreadable or unprofessional way.
In other words, just because everyone else does it - doesn't make it right, ha!
You need to relax just like makingamark and so many others... really. There is absolutely nothing wrong with improving your writing; and objective criticism and editing has always been a great way to learn.
And AGAIN, if you do it correctly yourself the first time - you don't have to worry about them correcting anything.I'm not rude and condescending - I'm passionate about this subject; tired of off-kiltered, overly-sensitive perspectives from other 'writers' (sorry, I don't look each one of you up - I just go by 'how you sound'); and frankly THRILLED that HP is finally taking this issue seriously and doing something about it - even if it doesn't involve any of my own elongated ideas.
I can't imagine what rules I may be breaking; but whatever they are, I could really care less. Excuse me for being more than a little irreverent.
Exactly... You've captured the issue in a nutshell. I know that *I* have always wondered how a Hub of the Day could be chosen with obvious spelling errors within the very first paragraph.
I know that many of us have considered moving our writing - but, as 'bad' as it is, there doesn't seem to be anywhere else to go beyond HP unless you are ready to reach for a more profound writing career.
I have also considered simply moving everything to my blogs - but, they do play off of each other as far as traffic goes. I haven't found a reason beyond 'dang I wish they would fix these eyesores' to leave, yet.
And if they manage to fix them, woot!!I'm not sure if you will be able to see this link or not - but this is one of my hubs that is going through this process and how it looks as it is being edited: http://hubpages.com/edit/changes/?edit=1908
There is a colored legend that shows the text that was removed as well as text that was added. I can see everything that they changed - and THANK YOU to whomever did this. It does look much better.They did a good job editing, but I will be adding one paragraph back into the article because *I* think it is important.
No, I am not upset that it was removed because it is a typical paragraph that most any English teacher would have deemed 'unnecessary'. My writing is rambling and wordy (maybe you've noticed); and 'killing my darlings' has never been easy for me. Ever. Ha!
It's an easy fix. No problemo and thank you HP. So far, so good.Good, then someone is doing their job right in the background - but, in this case, it would have been nice.
I can see everything that was changed, though - and I 'can' go in and re-edit anything I want to, just like I can in any of my other hubs. Nothing looks different except for this one page.
Aside from the colored legend or 'View Changes with Highlights' page - the other two options to view are the original article and the edited hub that is live on Hubpages.
I actually don't need to go back in and add that paragraph I was talking about earlier; because it was re-edited and added into the article in a better place that I hadn't seen, yet.
Very nice job, HP.
- calculus-geometryposted 9 years ago
0 I don't believe HubPages is only trying the help themselves with basic editing. I really don't. Why not try it and see what happens? The content is never locked up here. It can always be withdrawn by the author.
What if we push HubPages to the brink of exasperation with all this resistance? It seems to me that the majority of writers here don't want to see HubPages gone forever. Can't we see they are searching for answers to site decline?
Truthfully, I think removing the products was the right thing to do. Take a look at your Amazon sales—if you haven't had any sales on these books in the last few months, I would remove them. Readers are on your Hub for specific information from the internet not to buy a book, and when you try to sell them something when that isn't their intent on being there, you lose their trust. If you want to sell a book, tell us that you've read it and why it's better than the other books out there. That is valuable information. Just finding a book on Amazon and inserting it because you might make one sale some day, is not a good reader experience and should be avoided. Also, just because today your page ranks well, doesn't mean that the ranking is going to stick. We have to make the best reader experience possible; if adding a product enhances the reader's experience then add it. If you are adding the product just to make a sale, I would remove the product. Ologsinquito, you have written a great Hub that has a lot of really valuable information. I think that adding products to this particular Hub is not necessary.
Can I post a link here to my algebra hub, so people can use that until the programming is completed?
This also kills my brilliant idea of trying to figure out where the sale came from by noting the sale price. Oh, well; back to my nap.
If all of your sales are on different products than in your Amazon Capsules then you should remove them because you are likely losing credibility and trust from your readers. It's not worth it for the three sales—which likely cannibalized clicks from ads on your page as well. What is your intention with adding the products? Are you creating a trustworthy resource? Are the products there to enhance your article? Or, are you adding the products for your benefit. I think products can be incredibly useful and a great resource when applied for the reader's benefit—not ours. For me, author credibility is more important than a few sales. I know you take a lot of pride in your Hubs, Lizzy. I don't think products that aren't useful to the reader are worth risking your strong reputation as a writer.
What is supposed to be the difference between shipped earnings and earnings?
Ya know what? I'm going to find me one hub where I can put in one amazon capsule so as to join this adventure.
