How on earth is this type of behavior tolerated on hubpages?

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   JMcFarlandposted 9 years ago

   I stumbled across this hub on my news feed several days ago,  and tried to step up and offer support and encouragement for a brand new hubber whose beliefs differ from my own but who is being grossly mistreated by fellow hubbers.  How on earth is this behavior tolerated and allowed to continue?
   http://mormonfreelancer.hubpages.com/hu … t-16237505

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      Christy Kirwanposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Hi JMcFarland,
      
      We only know about personal attacks is when they are reported, so if you believe a Hubber is harassing or attacking another Hubber, please report that person from his/her profile for abuse and give us the details in the "brief explanation" box.

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         JMcFarlandposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         I've done that, did it for the first time a few days ago but the comments are still up, and they're being added to.

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            Christy Kirwanposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            Even when the perpetrating Hubbers have been banned or have had other manual actions against them by our Moderators, the comments will be left up until the Hubber removes them. Each Hubber has complete control over the comments on his/her Hub, so that person will need to delete them if he/she is bothered by them.

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               JMcFarlandposted 9 years agoin reply to this

               I understand that perfectly,  but that wasn't really the point I was attempting to address with the forum.   This is a brand new hubber who may not be familiar with those policies who is being attacked and called nantes because of his beliefs.   That's totally unacceptable.

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                  SmartAndFunposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                  Mods do not remove comments from hubs -- only the author can delete comments on their hubs. It looks like several comments have been removed already, so apparently the author already knows how to do that if they want to. Some authors prefer to leave controversial comments up, as it fuels more debate and their article gets more views. Comments left in place can also be proof of bad behavior if the author decides to report someone.
                  
                  I noticed in the comments of that article you told the author that their hub could be unpublished if they did not delete the negative comments. Is that true?

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                     JMcFarlandposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                     If personal attacks are left in the hub comments that violate hp tos, the hub can be unpublished or unfeatured.   It has happened to several hubbers I know personally,  and is why I moderate comments on my hubs.   I'm not worried about deleting comments,  I'm worried that this is the face our community presents to brand new hubbers from diverse backgrounds.

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                        SmartAndFunposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                        Oh wow, I didn't realize that. I don't write on controversial topics, so I guess that is why I am not familiar with this happening. It is awfully nice of you to be looking out for a newbie.

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                        NateB11posted 9 years agoin reply to this

                        I became aware of the issue of comments that violate TOS when a few people left comments that amounted to hate speech (for certain) on one of my Hubs. I was very tempted to approve the comments to prove my own point, but then looked up whether comments are counted in terms of Hub content; and, of course, they are and if they contain hate speech they're a no-no. Just as well, I agree with the policy and can do without those comments anyway. The comments were quite ironic, both sad and funny and, like I said, proved my point.

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                     relacheposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                     Google sees what is in comments, so it's up to Hub authors to make sure that content stays on the up-and-up too both in language used and links left behind.

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                        Marcy Goodfleischposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                        Relache - if Google sees what's in comments, does that mean that spam links that haven't been moderated, or poorly written comments are factored against HP's overall ratings? 
                        
                        Probably a rhetorical question . . .

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                           relacheposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                           If it's on the page, Google looks at it as part of the content regardless of who wrote it. 
                           
                           So, yes, content in comments can help or hinder, just like anything else.

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                              colorfuloneposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                              That is disturbing, because I was on a lenshub last week that had an astronomical amount of spam in comments. I doubt the owner of the hub is even aware of it.  I thought about reporting it, then thought that it would not mater, because I know its up to each hubber to moderate their comments on hubs.  That hub is ranking high in HubPages' search.
                              
                              IDK what to say. Maybe it isn't hurting HP?
                              (throws hands up)

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                                 Glenn Stokposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                                 It's unfortunate, but I see a lot of Hubbers are not aware and they have their comments set to post without moderation required. In addition, they never check if people are spamming their hubs. Those who don't follow up with moderating will most likely get more spam over time since the spammers find out where they can get away with it.
                                 
                                 As for that hub you refer to ranking high, how do you know? I would think it's not, due to the spam comments.  If you searched by quoting the title it will come up on top for sure.

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                                    colorfuloneposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                                    I searched for a topic on hubs because of a discussion in a thread.  The hub I am referring to was listed 4th on the results page, so it is ranking high in HP's search tool. (I have no idea how the hub is scored / ranked)
                                    
                                    * The content of the hub is a gold mine for anyone needing it as a resource.

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                                 Susana Sposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                                 I think we need to differentiate between spam comments and poorly written comments.
                                 
                                 A lot of people nowadays write in text format, or dash out a quick comment that has incorrect spellings or grammar. I have never had any issues with these kinds of comments and I'm sure that google can easily differentiate between the body of the article and the comments section.
                                 
                                 Spam is another thing entirely. I don't allow swear words or explicit language either.

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                                    colorfuloneposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                                    Deleted
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                                       Susana Sposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                                       I think anyone would agree with that
                                       
                                       I was referring more specifically to the discussion about what kinds of comments are ok and which aren't (I probably replied to the wrong post).
                                       
                                       The ones you've listed definitely aren't ok and could well damage the hub's search ranking.
                                       
                                       Regarding comments in general, the important thing is that they relate to the content of the page not how perfect the spelling or grammar is.

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                        SmartAndFunposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                        Good to know! Thanks!

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                        Glenn Stokposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                        I just had a good example of that happen yesterday. A fellow Hubber left a really good comment in one of my hubs that I would have wanted to approve. But unfortunately he included a link to a commercial website that was selling a costly self-help series of books without any value on the site itself. I couldn't approve his comment for that reason and I told him why. We have to be concerned about how Google ranks us based on outgoing links in comments to low quality sites.

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            relacheposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            I have never noticed a difference in the administrative response time between sending in a report of a random spam Hub and something where a person is being actively attacked.  From a user viewpoint, it appears as thought almost nothing is handled same day on this site unless there is an unusually large number of reports about the same situation.
            
            Sadly, that drives a trend of histrionic response in forums threads, but as you can see from you own use of that method, it does tend to work more effectively compared to just filing a regular report.

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      peachpurpleposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      i just read your hub and saw many attacking comments, which i must say, it wasn't nice of them to do so. Sorry to hear that

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      OldRosesposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      I agree, it should not be tolerated.  New hubbers should be encouraged to moderate their comments and use the delete option for hateful ones.  Authors should not have to tolerate hate speech.  Hubbers should be encouraged to report any inappropriate comments that they come across.  As a reader of hubs, I don't want to have to wade through a sea of hatred and intolerance to get to the commenters who truly want to have a discussion about a hub.

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      Daniel Carterposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      I read the hub. Since I'm a Mormon myself (not your typical one) the hub is extremely weak on purpose, and the bashing is rather hysterical. Other than that, bashing is not a good thing. I'm glad the system here at HP that removes and bans bashers and haters works as it does, and I think there's plenty of room for everyone, their beliefs and opinions. This is just a big experiment of testing our boundaries and thoughts on each other. Sometimes it's nearly divine. Sometimes I roll on the floor laughing. Sometimes it's a paradigm shift. If the children don't play well together, the best thing to do is to laugh that we took ourselves seriously about any of it.

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   LongTimeMotherposted 9 years ago

   I followed your link and took a look, JM.
   
   There's a mere 333 words in that hub. If you remove the quotes and dictionary definition, I figure there's about 170 words left.
   
   I wonder how many writers in the history of HubPages have managed to write 170 original words and receive so much attention from other hubbers.
   
   Nobody bothered to point out that 300 words falls way short of the required hub length.  I wonder if thousands of words in the comments section will help keep the hub featured, where ordinarily it would likely have been unfeatured for being low quality.
   
   Hmmm. Interesting.

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      NateB11posted 9 years agoin reply to this

      I looked at that and thought about pointing it out, but at that time it was not featured. I'm pretty sure it's not featured.

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         LongTimeMotherposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Well that makes it even more amusing!!

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            NateB11posted 9 years agoin reply to this

            
            
            I'm assuming the writer has her/his own readership that he/she wants to write for and is not interested in search engine traffic.

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      Marcy Goodfleischposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Long Time Mother - I noticed the same thing, and I reported it.  I also calculated the amount of original content vs copied content, and it's more like 135 words of 'real' content compared to the 330-ish in the hub. 
      
      My impression is that if something shows up in a profile, it's featured?  I could be wrong.  At any rate, people can see it on this site.  And it's an example of the issues we have here.
      
      For the record - I belong to the same church this person writes about, so my post here is not meant to bash the topic of the hub.

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         JMcFarlandposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         I do agree that the Hub itself is less than what HP and its users would consider a "stellar" hub.  But there is a learning curve at HP, especially for people who are new to writing, and the insults that the writer is receiving have nothing to do with the quality of the hub itself, it has to do with the hubber's beliefs, and where they differ from the beliefs of the commenters.

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            Marcy Goodfleischposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            JMcfarland - I agree as well that the comments are abusive and inappropriate. That issue was not the subject of my post.

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         LongTimeMotherposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Hi Marcy. I took a look just now and there is nothing showing as featured on the profile page. I know that sometimes hubs show in feeds before being formally featured ... but does that happen when hubbers are still in boot camp?
         
         I hope you don't receive that kind of comment on any hubs you choose to write on similar topics. Although if you did, I suspect any offending hubber would only get a chance to comment once.

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   Lilmsrandom2002posted 9 years ago

   It should not be tolerated.  Something should be done to those people.

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   SmartAndFunposted 9 years ago

   Isn't there also a setting which allows the author to set up their profile so that all their hubs show on their profile, whether the hubs are featured or not?

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      Susana Sposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Yes, hubbers can choose to display unfeatured hubs on their profile page if they want to.

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         colorfuloneposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         I couldn't reply to your comment here, Susan, http://hubpages.com/forum/post/2707121
         
         I will email that member and suggest they moderate that hub's comments, because it is a great resource. When I searched for it's title on Google, it showed up on top of page four.

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