Hub Hopping - Report or Not?

1. 75

   Lionrhodposted 10 years ago

   I've been hopping some hubs this morning. I came across a few excellent ones and a few that sheer perturbed me.
   
   In at least 3 of them, the English was so terrible and the word choice so indecipherable that I highly suspect it to be stolen and spun content. But what do I know?
   
   I looked up one hub via the title, expecting to find a bunch of similar spun-looking articles. Instead I found that the author (according to the profile) seemed to be rather well respected in the community, had a huge number of hubs, and around 1800 followers. The few hubs of theirs I checked out appeared to be in decent English.
   
   I went to hop another hub and came across another indecipherable hub. And strange enough, turned out to be written by the same author.
   
   Now it's possible that this person wasn't a native English speaker, and that these hubs represent their early progression in learning the language, and that they used some sort of translator to write those hubs. Or...?
   
   But the larger question: When should we hit the report button? Only when it has content that violates TOS? Or when we're suspicious that they may have stolen and spun content? (Even if I were to have tried looking for a matching page elsewhere on the web, it might be challenging since the English was so obviously garbled. What's your advice?

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   1. 83

      Millionaire Tipsposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      This question has been addressed recently in the forums.  If you think a hub is spun or is otherwise suspicious, you should report it.  If you simply think it is a low quality hub, you can give it a low rating accordingly.  When you report something, you are asking a moderator to take a look at it, so you don't have to worry that you are wrong.

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   2. 71

      lisavollrathposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      When in doubt, report, and let HQ decide.

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      1. 69

         sockiiposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         ^This.
         
         After a lot of years online my "spidey senses" are pretty good at figuring out what's poorly written English, by someone struggling with a second language, and what's likely spun content.  Spun stuff tends to have nonsensical or fancy words inserted in ways that no one actually learning/working with English would use or learn in a basic language class. (One of my favorites I recently saw in a spun recipe: "roughly marauded cilantro" and "ingrown toenail oil", instead of roughly chopped cilantro and canola oil...)
         
         If I suspect spinning like that, I flag it when hub hopping and include a couple sentences of the text that struck me as particularly off. Otherwise I'll just give it a low grammatical score. At the end of the day, it's HP's decision what to do next...

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      2. 75

         Lionrhodposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         Oh, just as a note, one of the sites the hopper jumped me to was yours on creating rust plates. Awesome stuff.

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   3. 84

      Jayne Lancerposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      In that kind of situation I hit the report button, tick the box for 'low quality' (or 'spun or poorly translated' depending), and give an account of my reasons and suspicions etc. in the box provided for a 'brief explanation'.

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      1. 70

         Judy Filareckiposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         Being new to HP, I was directed to the Hub Hopper as a learning experience to differentiate between good and bad Hubs. After reading all these comments, I'm not sure if it is worth my time to do some periodically. I never thought about reporting ones. I thought they were specifically chosen to be examples. I have to take another look.

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         1. 84

            Jayne Lancerposted 10 years agoin reply to this

            Most of the hubs I get to hop are very bad, and by the time a good one appears, I'm not sure if it really is good or just better than the others I've seen. That's why I now only hop a few hubs at a time.

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            1. 60

               fpherj48posted 10 years agoin reply to this

               OMG...LOL...Jayne.....Your comment has cracked me up!  It's brilliant....."I'm not sure it's good or just better than the others I've seen."  That truly can sum up the Hub-Hopping experience!  Excellent sense of humor, Jayne.

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   4. 60

      The Examiner-1posted 10 years agoin reply to this

      If it has bad spelling or grammar you give it a very low rating. If the Hub, or the author, has spam or such then you report it.

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      1. 85

         Lady Loreleiposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         My advice is like others. If in doubt report it and let the powers that be take care of it. It is my experience that those who bring spun or stolen copy onto a site also lift stolen articles to carry off with them as well. By reporting you may be saving yourself and other writers future work chasing these characters down with DMCA notices.

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   5. 85

      peachpurpleposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      yeah, you should report the hub to the HP team and take actions.

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   6. 71

      Brie Hoffmanposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Please report it..bad hubs bring us all down in googles eyes.

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   7. 88

      Marisa Wrightposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Hit the report button any time you see a Hub that is poor quality or breaks the TOS.   You shouldn't hesitate to flag those Hubs:  when you report, you'll see there is an option for "Low Quality" and also one for "Spun or Poorly Translated".
      
      It doesn't matter whether a Hubber is well respected or not, if one of their Hubs isn't up to standard, it should be removed!   One thing, though - number of followers tells you nothing about respect.   The spammers often play games - playing on the misguided courtesy of some Hubbers who will automatically follow back if you follow them - and thereby collecting huge numbers of followers without really knowing anyone. 
      
      The fact that person has Hubs in good English and others are rubbish, suggests they may be "spinning" other people's content.

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      1. 75

         Lionrhodposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         Well yup, I definitely gave those hubs the grades I felt they deserved.  The weird thing as I mentioned in my other thread is that only an hour or two later the same thread seemed to be an entirely different one.
         
         So now I'm not sure if the hub hopper is showing old or corrupted data or some people are super fast about editing, or what.
         
         Anyhow SOME sites get super angry if you report for anything that isn't a definite offense. If here "report" just means "this is off and I think a mod should check it out and verify," then that actually sounds useful.

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         1. 88

            Marisa Wrightposted 10 years agoin reply to this

            Yup, that's exactly what the report button means.  I've been trying to educate people to use the word "report" instead of "flag" for that reason.
            
            Of course, you don't want to get too click-happy with the report button, because every time you make a report, you're creating extra work for the moderators.  But you're not going to get in trouble for it!

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2. 80

   Shorebirdieposted 10 years ago

   I agree with what has been said.  If it's just poor writing, just mark it as low quality.  But, something that seems spun or stolen, definitely report.

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3. 75

   Lionrhodposted 10 years ago

   Thanks for everyone's input. I haven't yet reported any hubs, so I wasn't familiar with how the process worked.
   
   Okay, pretty wacky.
   
   I went back to capture an example on two of the hubs I especially remembered
   
   Since I first hopped those hubs THIS MORNING two of those hubs have already changed. Suddenly they're in complete English. Either HP is REALLY fast at alerting authors and this author was super fast in responding OR the hub hopper is itself corrupting data in some way.
   
   (Notably the author states she actually used to work at HP, so she might have received special status, and maybe even a call to "fix your hubs babe.")

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   1. 87

      rebekahELLEposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      It all sounds rather strange.  And that a former employee would make mention of this on her profile sounds strange.  I would still report it.  If the previous hubs that you saw were new, perhaps the author did a quick edit.  I doubt if the hub hopper is corrupting data.

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4. 75

   Lionrhodposted 10 years ago

   Okay just checked a third page, and it was so weirdly different from what I saw in the hopper that I just posted this:
   
   http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/125689

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   1. 78

      galleryofgraceposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Remember too that many of the "elite" hubbers purchase their hubs for low money. They are not capable of writing them themselves. So you may see an excellent hub with a couple lines or paragraphs that are horrible. This is because the hubber tried to add some more information in their own indecipherable words..

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      1. 75

         Lionrhodposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         Purchase their hubs?
         
         I do not understand at all.
         
         However in at least one of the 2 cases that suddenly had a better hub in less than 4 hours, all their other hubs looked professional and well written.
         
         Unless I can find data to prove that they actually edited their hub during that time, I'm having to guess that the hub hopper is messing with me.
         
         Some of the hubs I hopped that contained atrocious English are still as is, but these ones that have "changed" are inconsistent with the tone of the rest of the author's work, in that all of them are excellently written EXCEPT the ones I found via hub hopper. 
         
         Maybe it's time for me to contact the authors and ask what's up.

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         1. 60

            Arco Hess Designsposted 10 years agoin reply to this

            I'm not sure about recently, but a couple years ago purchasing lenses and hubs was extremely common. Some top authors were making hubs and selling them for $20 a piece or more. I'm not sure if that's still common or not.
            
            However, what is definitely common is going to a freelance site and paying $1 or $2 per 500 words. You can do that even at MTurk on Amazon. ODesk or any number of other places well known for low priced freelancing.

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            1. 71

               Brie Hoffmanposted 10 years agoin reply to this

               I have never heard of anyone purchasing hubs before..this is news to me!

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         2. 88

            Marisa Wrightposted 10 years agoin reply to this

            Some Hubbers pay writers to write their Hubs.   They are usually not English speakers themselves, so not well placed to judge how well written the articles are.  That type of Hubber will typically have a lot of decent Hubs and some awful ones!

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            1. 75

               Lionrhodposted 10 years agoin reply to this

               Ghost Hubbers? Sad.

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5. 60

   FatFreddysCatposted 10 years ago

   Ouch! That sounds painful.

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6. 69

   Glenda Motsavageposted 10 years ago

   I've experienced the same type of low quality/spun articles while hopping Hubs.  Incidentally, I reported one last week, and recently while hub-hopping, I received the exact same one to review that I had flagged last week.  Enough said!  I don't hop Hubs much anymore!

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7. 60

   LindaSmith1posted 10 years ago

   This is nuts!  I have reported hubs with forbidden topics that remain along with those who spam the forums. Sometimes it is the same person.
   
   Have you seen this: http://blog.hubpages.com/2012/08/hub-ho … o-feature/       This is a 2 year old thread but.......
   
   This new Hopper is primarily designed to help us find Hubs to feature.  One of the comments refer to edited hubs are run back through.
   
   So what is the interest that HP has in copied content, poor quality etc if any.

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8. 60

   LindaSmith1posted 10 years ago

   Same here Brie!    I have caught hubs that were copied from article directories.  I don't hop much anymore.  Most of it is poetry.

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9. 71

   Fiorenzaposted 10 years ago

   The original blog post by the HP owners said it was to help HP find hubs that were good enough to be featured, but most I've hopped have been poor to outright spun.

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10. 60

    LindaSmith1posted 10 years ago

    Funny but true Jayne.

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11. 60

    LindaSmith1posted 10 years ago

    Totally agree with Marisa on this one. 
    
    TIP:  The author of the hub does not know who reported their hub, so there is no fear of repercussions.
    
    To repeat what has been said already:  Just because a hub is reported does not mean it will be automatically be deleted, etc.  It simply means human eyes will look at it and decide what needs to be done. It may be deleted, the author may get a warning and a chance to fix the issues, to add content, etc.

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