Publishing poetry hubs

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   lovebuglenaposted 11 years ago

   One of my friends who is a poet had created a Hub Pages account in hopes to share her poetry with others. She published a number of poetry hubs that included her poetry and appropriate images but they became unpublished with warning messages. I don't remember what they were exactly but I do remember the words substandard and watermarked (with regards to images). Her images were never watermarked and her content was not substandard (from what I saw). She tried editing the hubs (and I helped) but her hubs still had those warnings and were still unpublished and in the end she was banned from the site. She was never told what exactly substandard meant and what was substandard about her poetry hubs. I just found info about what substandard means and I see now that it includes things like a nearly empty hub, one that contains purely personal content, and contributes nothing new to a heavily saturated topic, among other things. Since poetry is of a personal nature and can be very short (hence a very empty hub if just the poem is included), and it may contribute nothing new to a heavily saturated topic is it a good idea to publish poetry hubs and how does one know if it will get published or not? I do see some people publish a limerick hub which is only 5 lines long and has one picture.

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   1. 81

      Simone Smithposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Hey lovebuglena,
      My apologies for the unpleasant experience. Should you need further clarification about Hub moderations, we always recommend responding to the moderation notification email with further questions.
      Was the Hub properly categorized as a poem? That might be a source of trouble, as Hubs in non-poetry Topics are not given the greater leeway poems are given when it comes to publishing standards.
      With regard to the moderation types you mentioned, this Learning Center entry might help: http://hubpages.com/learningcenter/Mode … ow-Quality
      I hope I've been able to clear things up a bit!

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2. 83

   lovebuglenaposted 11 years ago

   I've published a few hubs with poems in them and they were published with no issues. I did add text to the hub as well though so it wasn't just a sole poem in there. It was my friend that was having issues with poetry hubs and hence got banned. Not sure if she chose the poetry categorization or not. Remembering what she went through I was just curious to know if it is good to publish poetry hubs or not. I have plenty of poetry I can share on here. Don't want to risk being banned.

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      Robinposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I have never heard of anyone being banned for writing poetry; it is highly unlikely this was the reason.  In fact, we welcome poetry on HubPages and have one of the largest selections of poems on the web!  I recommend that your friend goes through the process that Simone suggested.  We do make mistakes, but we are usually fairly certain about TOS violations when we ban a user.  I'm sorry it's been uncomfortable for you! 

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      1. 83

         lovebuglenaposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Do poetry hubs have restrictions when it comes to word count? I've seen hubbers publish limericks in their hubs and those are only 5 lines long so the word count is too low. And nothing else was in the hubs besides one photo and maybe a YouTube video.

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         1. 82

            Robinposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            We can't discuss reasons for bans in the Forums or with other Hubbers.  Most of the time there is more than meets the eye, but again, once in a while, we do make mistakes.  If you friend needs more information on her ban, she can click on the help link in the top black navigation bar and get more clarification.  Unfortunately, that's all the help that I can offer. 

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         2. 84

            Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            No, there's no lower limit for poetry Hubs IF they've been placed in the Poetry category. 
            
            If it was Sonnetwolf, then the problem was watermarked photos (she put a copyright notice on every photo).  She was told by several people, including me:
            
            http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/88537#post1892515
            http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/88537?p … ost1893576
            http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/88537?p … ost1893578
            
            In one of her posts, she also mentioned that some of her early Hubs were poems from her blog, which Melbel and others explained was not allowed.
            
            Her response was simply to go on and on about how all her poems and pictures were HER OWN WORK so it wasn't fair.  I don't know what she expected anyone to do - change the rules just for her?  I have to confess I gave up on the thread eventually because she didn't appear to be listening to anyone.  But a lot of Hubbers did try to help.  Psycheskinner summed it up well
            
            http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/88537?p … ost1894416
            
            She did seem to get the message in the end, but I suspect that the decision had been made in the meantime.

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               WryLiltposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               Oh I remember that. Some people just don't understand that if you write on a site you don't own, you need to abide by its rules.

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3. 83

   lovebuglenaposted 11 years ago

   She was banned from the site a while ago. All she posted was poetry and images to go along with that poetry. She hasn't tried to come back here and create a new account and start over. I don't know if she will want to go through the trouble again.

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   1. 84

      Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      If she didn't put the poems into the poetry category, that would be enough to get banned - because in al the other categories, very short Hubs are classes as "substandard".
      
      Did she have copyright notices on her photos?  That would also lead to a ban because that counts as a watermark.

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4. 83

   rebekahELLEposted 11 years ago

   I do recall a poet being banned, and I can't recall the details.  She was very vocal in the forums during the time period and was trying to get answers.  It may have been after the Patron of the Arts contest.  I think her images had her logo on them.  Her poetry was very good.  I don't know if this is the same person, but an incident did take place.

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   1. 83

      lovebuglenaposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Her username on here was sonnetwolf1. I see her thread in the forums is still up. She had a copyright notice on her images... and I wonder if that is the only issue.

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         lovebuglenaposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Seems she had two non-poetry hubs that were a bit personal though I don't remember then. But her poetry was not published elsewhere as I specifically told her no duplicate content allowed. I wonder if she was banned because we make some changes on her hubs and republished them thinking we fixed the issues but they weren't fixed and we kept doing it more than once in an attempt to get it sorted.

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      2. 83

         rebekahELLEposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Yes, that is who I was thinking of but couldn't recall her name.  As Robin says, her best bet is to contact HP directly.  One of her poems had been in my Top Ten favorites at the close of the contest.  She's very talented.

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5. 91

   mary615posted 11 years ago

   I remember a Hubber who was banned.  I always thought it was because she was writing erotic poetry which would not be  appropriate for "general audiences". 
   This is just my guess, nothing more....

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   1. 83

      lovebuglenaposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      sonnetwolf1 wasn't writing erotic poetry. That is not her style of poetry. Perhaps you are mistaking her for someone else.

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         mary615posted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Definitely!  I'm not at all familiar with sonnetwolf1.

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6. 83

   lovebuglenaposted 11 years ago

   Aside from what happened to my friend I just wanted to know if it was safe to publish poetry on here cause I didn't want to face any issues...

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7. 83

   lovebuglenaposted 11 years ago

   Now I have another question related to poetry... If I first talk about eating disorders, for example, and then include a poem about eating disorders... should the category for the hub be POETRY or HEALTH?

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      rebekahELLEposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I would probably include it in poetry in case the moderators mark it as wrong category.  Is the focus on the poem or the content about eating disorders?  If you want the focus on the poem, I wouldn't include too much info other than what you want to emphasize in relation to your poem.
      
      As for your previous question, yes, it's safe to publish poetry here as long as you abide by HP's guidelines for publishing on the site.  (I personally don't think sonnetwolf's issue was primarily with her copyright logo, I think it had more to do with duplicate content. There was more to her ban than what was posted in the forum thread. That's between her and HP.)
      
      There are some fantastic poems published on HP.  You'll have to use decent keywords to bring in search traffic, and it is possible to get ranked in the SERPS with a poem.  Depending on your reason for publishing poetry here, don't expect it to be a money maker. But it can bring very targeted traffic if someone is searching for a certain type of poem.

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8. 83

   lovebuglenaposted 11 years ago

   Posting poetry on here would be to share my writing with others and not for money reasons but if it could bring me a few cents why not...

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9. 83

   lovebuglenaposted 11 years ago

   I wanted to start sharing some of my poetry on here and one I decided to post is one that sheds light on eating disorders and issues related to that In the hub, First I talk about eating disorders and mental health (few paragraphs) and then include the poem. I just checked and my category for the hub is eating disorders and mental health.

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      Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      If you've got several paragraphs of text as well as the poem, then there's no problem with putting your Hub in the appropriate category rather than in poetry.   The poetry category is most useful if you just want to post a short poem because it doesn't have a minimum word count.

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10. 0

    delleaposted 11 years ago

    An idea to consider for poetry could be theme-sets. In other words, if you have a bunch of short poems but with a centralized theme, then you could publish a themed title, description, and image for the hub's heading, and then have each short poem as a separate cell with its own title (and maybe photo) through the rest of the hub. This may help to prevent the hub from being classified as too short or substandard.

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    1. 84

       Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       If it's in the poetry section, it won't be unpublished as substandard because the minimum word count doesn't apply there. 
       
       However, your idea is still an excellent one.  Even though HubPages allows short poems, Google doesn't like them.   If you group together a few related poems in the same Hub, you're more likely to get search engine traffic.

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