Bad Hubbers

1. 85

   Austinstarposted 8 years ago

   What is the best way to notify the Hub staff of a 'less than stellar' hubber? And could we not get some sort of blocking feature so that we can disallow specific hubbers from commenting on our content if they are being obnoxious or undesirable? The reporting flag doesn't seem to work very well.

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   1. 84

      gmwilliamsposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      Austinstar, I understand.  I DO UNDERSTAND!

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      1. 85

         Austinstarposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         Grace, I suspect we are thinking of the very same hubbers that continually disrupt some of the intelligent conversations that we enjoy participating in. There are now 7 hubbers on my list that I will no longer interact with due to their behavior on HubPages!

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         1. 84

            gmwilliamsposted 8 years agoin reply to this

            I was thinking of 1 in particular.  Austinstar , you have to write a letter to Team@Hubpages regarding the matter at hand.  They would be better able to remedy the situation.

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   2. 0

      calculus-geometryposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      You can configure your comments setting so that everything has to be approved by you before it appears.  You can also flag a persistent commenter as spam and with enough reports the IP is branded as a spam.  Deleting stupid hub comments rather than engaging with them is the best way to discourage them. 
      
      
      If you're talking about Q&A and the religion/politics forums, anyone is allowed to post their opinion on your threads whether or not you agree.  That is the risk you take when you start threads on hot debate topics. 
      
      Q&A and the topical forums are not the main purpose of this site. If you find yourself involved in acrimonious comment debates all the time (as your 'recent activity' indicates) you should take a step back and ask yourself what you're even doing here.  There's some modest money to be made on HP, but it's by writing hubs on things that people google, not whatever it is that you're doing all day on Q&A.

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      1. 85

         Austinstarposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         So, it's our fault when spammers, trolls, and underachievers comment on the Q&A section? Uh, NO, it isn't! The Q&A section displays advertising for HP and it's content questioners.
         I'm talking about below par commenters that irritate legitimate hubbers, bring down the entire HP experience and generally lower the value of HP as a whole.
         Is this a site for writers? Or is it a site that Google hates because of low content?
         Yes, we can moderate our own hubs and our Q&A's, but we still these these under-performers bringing down the site overall.
         Too many people are allowed to post willy nilly and HP is sitting by letting good writers become irritated enough to quit writing and commenting here. We need to clean up the HP experience.

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         1. 84

            gmwilliamsposted 8 years agoin reply to this

            +1,000,000,000,000,000,000!

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         2. 0

            calculus-geometryposted 8 years agoin reply to this

            So, it's our fault when spammers, trolls, and underachievers comment on the Q&A section?
            
            Yes, it is, because your Q&A activity is deliberately provocative. You can delete answers to your questions and any comments on those answers, as you very well know. 
            
            
            Is this a site for writers?
            
            That, and forum drama queens.
            
            
            Too many people are allowed to post willy nilly...
            
            Yes, especially people posting questions in Q&A for the sole purpose of instigating dumbo internet fights.
            
            
            We need to clean up the HP experience.
            
            Finally we agree on something.

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            1. 85

               Austinstarposted 8 years agoin reply to this

               There are a variety of reasons that I post to the q&a section. I gain new followers, I find new people to follow, and occasionally I find a topic to write hubs about. I do not, as you seem to think, deliberately try to get Involved in acrimonious debates with trolls. I just had to close yet another question because of a troll.
               Why don't you contribute to the q&a section? Because you can't handle controversy?
               I'm talking about making hp a better place and you are attacking my character and choice of writing styles. Aren't you the expert.

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               1. 82

                  tillsontitanposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                  Hmm, it would appear everyone is entitled to their opinions, that is why there is vanilla and chocolate, however, rude and obnoxious is never necessary.
                  Comments need to be objective and add to the conversation.  I agree with you Austinstar, no need for starting fights!

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            2. 84

               Venkatachari Mposted 8 years agoin reply to this

               Great, Calculus!!!  I am dumped with your answering style. I appreciate you.

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               1. 93

                  Phyllis Doyleposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                  +1 

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2. 96

   Thomas Swanposted 8 years ago

   In my experience, most of them get banned eventually.

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3. 71

   makingamarkposted 8 years ago

   I have difficulty with complaints about comments received if you've NOT got Moderation switched on
   
   Leaving moderation off is a bit like a red rag to a bull IMO!

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   1. 93

      Phyllis Doyleposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      I agree. Moderate and delete is the thing to do.

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      1. 85

         Austinstarposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         Of course we moderate and delete on our own content. I'm talking about HP overall and only the HP Team can permanently get rid of those that do not become responsible members of the HP experience. There are way too many below par "writers" here and Google knows it and we all get penalized for it.

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         1. 93

            Phyllis Doyleposted 8 years agoin reply to this

            Yes, that is true, and I agree with you.. But, I was replying to makingamark's comment on comments that are not moderated:
            
            "I have difficulty with complaints about comments received if you've NOT got Moderation switched on
            
            Leaving moderation off is a bit like a red rag to a bull IMO!"

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            1. 71

               makingamarkposted 8 years agoin reply to this

               which in turn was a response to Austinstar's comment in the original post
               
               And could we not get some sort of blocking feature so that we can disallow specific hubbers from commenting on our content if they are being obnoxious or undesirable?

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               1. 93

                  Phyllis Doyleposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                  Yes, that is correct, thank you.

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                  1. 85

                     Austinstarposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                     Ok, Obviously I am not making myself very clear on this subject, so I will try one final time to state my point.
                     HubPages is a business!
                     We, the 'hubbers' are akin to employees.
                     In order to IMPROVE the business, HP should strive to provide QUALITY content.
                     A successful business will not tolerate or encourage 'bad' employees.
                     Therefore, my point is to eliminate or stop 'bad' employees/writers from continuing to pollute this business.
                     Our advertisers (the people who pay us) will go elsewhere if the content here is terrible.
                     Do you not understand this concept? How can I make it more clear?

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                     1. 71

                        makingamarkposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                        You are talking in general terms.
                        
                        We are not employees - but we do agree to comply with terms and conditions.
                        
                        You haven't been specific as to what these "bad hubbers" have done in terms of a breach of the terms and conditions.
                        
                        You not liking them does not count. 
                        You finding them irritating does not count.
                        
                        You haven't contacted the HubPages Team by email and provided precise examples as to WHY something should be done - with reference to a precise para within terms and conditions.
                        
                        What more is there to say?
                        
                        When can we expect the email to be sent?

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                        1. 93

                           Phyllis Doyleposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                           +1

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                           1. 71

                              makingamarkposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                              What I find really irritating is people who complain about comments but who don't switch on Moderation of comments!
                              
                              

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                              1. 85

                                 Austinstarposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                                 I'm pretty sure that the 'good' hubbers have figured this one out. Yes, I have moderation on ALL my content where allowed, and I announce publicly that I will delete comments that are unacceptable. I have also listed ALL the reasons for comments being unacceptable in the first place as I have written a hub on Why hub authors delete comments!
                                 I'm not talking about editing our own content. I'm talking about disallowing substandard content on the entire site.
                                 Why do we have quality scoring (hub and hubber scores) if HP is just going to allow anyone to post, regardless of quality?

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                                 1. 71

                                    makingamarkposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                                    But that's not what you said in the original post.
                                    
                                    Could that be why people have repeatedly addressed what you did say?

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                           2. 85

                              Austinstarposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                              Are you saying that you are an HP moderator and that you have not received the email that I specifically sent?

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                              1. 93

                                 Phyllis Doyleposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                                 No, I am not saying that. Why do you assume that? I am just a hubber.

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                              2. 71

                                 makingamarkposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                                 Of course not. Moderators do not read this forum.

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4. 54

   paradigm searchposted 8 years ago

   Odd. Complete. Deleted?

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5. 54

   paradigm searchposted 8 years ago

   Or would someone like to play?

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6. 91

   Chriswillman90posted 8 years ago

   Are they spamming a lot or is it mostly crude comments/behavior?

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   1. 85

      Austinstarposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      They are copy/pasting; trolling; repeating themselves over and over; they don't write hubs, or if they do, they are very low quality hubs. Generally, they are just making nuisances of themselves.

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      1. 84

         gmwilliamsposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         There is one in particular who does not have any hubs at all.

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         1. 85

            Austinstarposted 8 years agoin reply to this

            If only HP had a qualification system in place. Like Hubbers need to write at least one hub per month to stay active. Or Hubbers need to maintain a hub score of 50 or above after the first trial period (a year perhaps), or Hubbers receiving 10 or more complaints will be investigated for quality and adhering to HP goals.
            Sheesh, I could think of several tests to insure that we maintain quality hubbers and get rid of the bottom feeders.

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7. 88

   Len Cannonposted 8 years ago

   Snitches get stitches. *taps a baseball bat menacingly*

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   1. 86

      Jason Marovichposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      *Eases mouse pointer off of report link*

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8. 90

   Kylyssaposted 8 years ago

   Moderate your comments and delete any that are hate speech, offensive, threatening, off-topic, unintelligible, or spam if you so desire. I think reporting every incident of violation is already enough to get most repeat offenders banned.
   
   The idea of requiring people to jump through hoops or to meet some kind of standard to comment with an opinion on a content farm post seems pretty pretentious and ridiculous. Magazines, newspapers, and other professional online publications don't even do that! This is too close to automated censorship or automated limitation of free speech to individuals who pass some kind of test for my taste.
   
   Why do you want to allow individual hubbers to prevent most of humanity from commenting on the posts of other authors on HubPages? Shouldn't we get to make those decisions for ourselves?
   
   If someone isn't making threats, posting hate speech. or spamming, what, exactly are you protecting other hubbers and readers from? Are you protecting them from annoying people? Almost every adult human being online is aware that some people are annoying and they aren't going hold it against you if someone leaves an annoying comment on your post or if you moderate an annoying comment.

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   1. 85

      Austinstarposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      Kylyssa, You know I am not talking about you or any quality hubber here. But when fellow hubbers write to ME to express their dismay about certain other hubbers, I try to find a way to bring it to the attention of the HP team (yes, i have reported this particular person - name deleted), but this is what one hubber wrote in a personal email to me said,
      ".I'm really at the boiling point with that pathetic, self-proclaimed Bible Quote EXPERT, _Name deleted__. She has to be the worst I have ever encountered here at HP. She has basically gone off the deep end. She is EVERYWHERE, interjecting her comments and Scripture under ALL comments by anyone...everywhere! She injects herself into every discussion yet contributes NOTHING but her repetitive preaching adding QUOTES.....that no one gives a damn about the FIRST time she does it....so she continues to repeat herself. She is BEYOND a nuisance. She's unbearable. I TOO have told her to NOT comment to ME, ever again. I HOPE she abides! I just left her a pretty explicit warning in _Name deleted_'s question: "Does it scare you.......?".....There is nothing we can do about her! I'm frustrated! Just venting, I guess. (Name deleted)."
      So, you can see how this person and those like her are really bringing down HP and what little quality we have been able to garner over the years.

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      1. 71

         makingamarkposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         So why doesn't the person saying this to you actually have the gumption to put this in a note to HubPages HQ?
         
         Please don't complain on the forum about matters which appear to require a note to HQ. You (and your friend) have the solution within your own hands.

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         1. 85

            Austinstarposted 8 years agoin reply to this

            We have reported this to HP via the report flag feature. It doesn't seem to help. If we could just block these kinds of comments ourselves, there would be no need to involve you, HP moderators, or the HP forum.
            I'm not asking HP to ban people, I think we should just be allowed to block certain users from our own content. We don't want to interact with certain people. If other hubbers want to tolerate this kind of low quality commentary, then more power to them. But there are people that contribute nothing and are allowed to post garbage everywhere.
            I don't think this is the sort of thing that our advertisers want to pay for.

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            1. 96

               theraggededgeposted 8 years agoin reply to this

               I must be confused or something. Surely if your hubs are set to 'approve comments' this person couldn't post anything on your content? I love the 'delete for ever' button.
               
               I don't take part in the Q&A section as life is too short for getting into arguments about trivialities so I wouldn't know how you could 'control' the conversations. I guess, if you put it out there on a public platform, you have to be prepared to take the rough with the smooth. That's what debate is for. You might not agree with what the person is saying but you can't shut down free speech.

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               1. 85

                  Austinstarposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                  Not talking about free speech here. Talking about cleaning up hp and making our site a better place.

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            2. 71

               makingamarkposted 8 years agoin reply to this

               Or you could just ignore the Q&A section of HubPages?
               
               When I say "report to HubPages" I mean email them. Do you not know how to do this?

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            3. 93

               Phyllis Doyleposted 8 years agoin reply to this

               I don't get it - what is it you want to hear from others? Everyone has basically told you that the way to "clean up" and "block" commenters is to not approve their comments on your hubs and also in Q&A. Fix your hub settings for comments to "must approve first" and delete if you want to block. "Delete Forever" button can also be hit.
               
               There is no new feature needed for this. HP has given us the right to block commenters if we so choose. To let their negative comments get published just to argue with them to win a point is a waste of time and useless.
               
               To "clean up HP" in general and clear out the "low quality" send emails to staff as often as necessary and hope that they will take more seriously the need to not allow low quality hubs to be published and to ban those hubbers who continually create disruption, discordance, negativity and violations of TOS, which gives HP a bad reputation.
               
               So why is this discussion still going on? You have many answers here to help you resolve the issue.

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               1. 60

                  DasEngelposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                  Why is this discussion still going on? Apparently, for the same reason that you've written this comment.

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      2. 90

         Kylyssaposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         Like many women who write on controversial subjects, I've received thousands of abusive and threatening comments and contacts in response to my writing online, sometimes on pages I did not have permission to moderate myself. I understand being upset by words. These words seem awfully mild for such a degree of upset, though.
         
         If you want to stop comments you don't like from appearing on your work, moderate your comments. If the person makes a concrete threat you believe he or she may follow up on, document it thoroughly and contact the FBI. If the person is Dennis Markuze aka David Mabus aka DM aka Operation Archangel, contact the authorities in Montréal, instead.
         
         Your posts read as if you'd like to be able to:
         * Report a hubber and make her unable to comment on HubPages.
         * Require people who comment to have hubs.
         * Require people who comment to pass some kind of test.
         * Require hubbers to meet a publishing quota.
         
         You can already delete or decide not to accept comments. You can already prevent any comment you want from showing on your content. Even Q&A allows you to delete comments.
         
         I'm well aware of the phenomenon of people dropping giant blocks of off-topic duplicate content from the Bible in comments. I've gotten comments containing rants peppered with quotes that were longer than the substantial article or editorial they were on. I delete such comments if they are long enough to confuse Google as to what my page is about. I let them stay if they are only a few sentences long and on topic.
         
         Such comments can be annoying, but but don't irrational, judgmental, and repetitive comments more-or-less prove your point about the people who make them anyway? I used to be a little bothered that Squidoo did not allow excessive swearing because it meant I couldn't show the most irrational comments, the ones that supported my statements about the topics causing people to behave irrationally. It also resulted in some pretty one-sided looking guestbooks.
         
         If what you want is to be able to block people from commenting on HubPages, that would affect me and every other person you consider a "good hubber" because we write on HubPages, too. The hubber in question might have plenty of perfectly rational things to say on topics like flower arranging or cooking or hair styles. Some other hubbers might enjoy the Bible quotes and judgmental comments on their hubs, too, for whatever reason.

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9. 71

   makingamarkposted 8 years ago

   ...AND SO, TO RECAP - back to the original post http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/133271#post2767826
   
   Q "What is the best way to notify the Hub staff of a 'less than stellar' hubber?
   
   email the HubPages Team. Do you need the email address?
   You will need to be very specific as to
   * the ways in which the 'less than stellar' hubber has breached the terms and conditions.
   * Precise examples - complete with hyperlinks - should be provided rather than general complaints.
   
   If you just don't like what they're saying - but they actually haven't broken any of the rules - see below.
   
   Q " And could we not get some sort of blocking feature so that we can disallow specific hubbers from commenting on our content if they are being obnoxious or undesirable?
   
   You've already got a facility - as have we all. Switch on moderation of your comments and use it.
   
   If you meant to ask a completely different question - such as how do I stop people commenting on threads I start in the Forum - I think you need to start a different thread which has a precise question at the start. 
   
   You could always try using the Technical Questions Forum - as in "How do I.....?"

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10. 95

    FatFreddysCatposted 8 years ago

    Every time I see this thread it occurs to me that "Bad Hubbers" would be an awesome band name.
    
    ...yeah, that's all I got. I'll see myself out.

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11. 60

    DasEngelposted 8 years ago

    If I understand this thread correctly (opening poster, feel free to correct me), Austinstar is mainly talking about attitude and such stuff.
    
    
    One: There are people who enjoy being on this site. And they want to see improvements in their work and to the site all in all.
    
    Two: There are a group of people who enjoy being on this site, but they'll never admit that. And in their hearts they'd plot everything under the sun, that is virtually possible, to defame the very place that shelters them, and to bring it down.

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    1. 85

       Austinstarposted 8 years agoin reply to this

       I am talking about the QUALITY of content here on HP!

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       1. 60

          DasEngelposted 8 years agoin reply to this

          Same thing.

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12. 0

    calculus-geometryposted 8 years ago

    Your original post was about annoying commenters, now you have derailed your own conversation to talk about crap content. 
    
    No one disagrees with you that HP allows too many crap hubs, and that mods don't do jack squat when you flag the crap; that debate has been going on for years.
    
    But it seems like you should have started a different forum post for this new discussion.  Just my two cents, carry on!

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    1. 71

       makingamarkposted 8 years agoin reply to this

       Yay!!!! 
       
       What calculus-geometry said!

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    2. 93

       Phyllis Doyleposted 8 years agoin reply to this

       I second the "Yay!"  - 

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13. 93

    Phyllis Doyleposted 8 years ago

    This is getting redundant.
    
    Phyllis Doyle has left the building - I mean discussion.

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