Is anyone else being threatened with having their articles removed?

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   OldRosesposted 2 years ago

   I just received an email from the editing team telling me that an article I wrote in 2019 will be removed from Dengarden because another author has written a more in-depth hub on the same plant.  The  solution that was suggested to prevent removal of my hub is that I must completely re-write the hub making it about a particular propagation technique along with photos and videos demonstrating the technique.
   
   That is not what my hub is about.  My hub is a general overview of the plant, including information on growing and propagating it.  In fact, all of my hubs are general overviews of various plants with information about growing and propagating them.  Does this mean that eventually all of my hubs will be removed from Dengarden as other hubbers write more in-depth hubs on the same plants?
   
   Is anyone else experiencing this?

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      Miebakagh57posted 2 years agoin reply to this

      Caren, you've heard the others clear and loud.                                   You can do an updating to kill worry. But instead, you get worry in place of working pleasurely, and adding lots of worry to the load.                                 Has HubPages, threaten to removed your over 300 stories? Kill your fear and do some work. Thanks.

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   Rupert Taylorposted 2 years ago

   That seems a bit harsh Caren. Several of my article topics have been covered by others, (one yesterday) but I've never had my original removed for that reason.
   
   Usually, I search to see if a topic I'm thinking of writing about has been covered before. If it has and it's on a niche I usually move on and find another topic as a courtesy to the writer who got there first. If an earlier vision is on Discover I go ahead, confident I can produce something worthy of a niche site.
   
   I would raise the issue with the powers that be with evidence of why the dumping is unnecessary. I've found them to be receptive to a well-argued case.

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      OldRosesposted 2 years agoin reply to this

      I emailed them and this is their reply:
      
      " As indicated in the note from your editor, one of the main issues here is that your article is not the most comprehensive hoya article we have. Apart from your information about propagation, everything is covered in another article on Dengarden, which is not good for SEO. Your editor requested that you consider making changes to this article both to bring it up to our current standards and to make it stand out from the other article we already have about hoyas. "
      
      My problem with that is that all of my hubs are similar so if other Hubbers write hubs that are more in-depth than mine, the rest of my hubs will also be removed from Dengarden.
      
      Which means that HubPages is effectively firing me as an author.  Just a little heads up about the direction HubPages is taking.

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         Kenna McHughposted 2 years agoin reply to this

         I am sorry to hear this, Caren. You'd think you'd have some recourse.

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   Sue Adamsposted 2 years ago

   The new author may even have used some of your information, Caren, to write their new article about Hoya, who knows? I'm not saying that they have, but it is a theoretical possibility. In the end, isn't that what "research" is all about?
   
   You could compare such a theoretical situation with a songwriter infiltrating a few words or a phrase from an existing song in their "new" lyrics, and then their new song becomes number one in the charts.  Or again, a chef could be cooking a dish from his grandma's recipe but by adding a few spices or changing some of the ingredients he would make his grandma's dish a new, even tastier dish.
   
   Or lastly,  someone can be downloading a Google Image to process it in Photoshop. By re-framing and re-focusing it, perhaps inverting it or only using a section of the original image, raising its saturation, contrast, and dpi, the image now becomes a new, improved version of the original image to better illustrate the new article. What happens then?
   
   After a while, the new image ends up back on Google Images (linking back to the new article). It is now on the first image page while the poor old original image slowly fades away into the oblivion of the sandbox. That's reality.
   
   In my opinion, on a grand scale, such a reality is not a bad thing because, in the long run, it boosts the communication process of knowledge that eventually grows common knowledge.
   
   If I were in your shoes Caren, I wouldn't worry at all about all your other articles being moved. With an enormous portfolio of 331 articles, you are obviously a very knowledgeable expert in your field. You still have 330 articles in the kitty. On the upside, you can now write a new article about something really outlandish like say, Why the Monarch Butterfly Has Three Belly Buttons?
   

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   Shesabutterflyposted 2 years ago

   That article has a cc from 2014 so not new, unless most of the information was recently added. I couldn't get past the first paragraph of the other article though, and can't compare the two.
   
   Are there topics you could expand/create to fill your article out more instead of rewriting from scratch? I don't understand why you can't make yours more indepth vs having to rewrite a whole new article. If you can make yours the more comprehensive one they should keep yours.
   
   I haven't come across this yet, but a few years back I noticed someone wrote an article similar to one of mine. I kept an eye on it for awhile, but the newer article was never moved off Discover to my knowledge.

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      OldRosesposted 2 years agoin reply to this

      This is the request from the editor:
      
      Hi Caren. Thank you for this article about hoyas. Unfortunately, it will need some editing if it is to remain on Dengarden. In addition to a few errors and formatting issues, it is also very similar to another, more fleshed-out article on the site. Covering duplicate topics on one site is bad for SEO, so this article would also benefit from reorganization and refocusing on the air layering technique you mention at the end.
      
      Please consider the following:
      
      - Ensure all headers are in APA title case.
      
      - Break up large paragraphs into smaller sections and add H3s so that readers have an easier time navigating your page (and you can capitalize on more keywords).
      
      - Change your title to something like "How to Propagate Hoyas by Air Layering"
      
      - If simple layering can also be done with hoyas, consider adding a section about that as well (and adding "and Simple Layering" to the title).
      
      - If you have photos of these propagation techniques, please add them in! Images are so helpful for readers in cases like this. If you don't have any related images, you might consider adding a video that addresses the topic so that readers can see the technique in action.
      
      - Move the propagation techniques to the top of the article (below your charming and relatable intro).
      
      - Consider removing the sections about how to grow and prune hoyas, as those are already extensively covered in the other hoya article on Dengarden. If pruning and propagation can be woven together, however, feel free to do so.
      
      This is NOT the kind of garden writing that I do.  I write hubs that cover all aspects of growing and propagating flowers, vegetables, shrubs and trees, in simple terms so that even a beginner gardener with no experience can successfully grow them.  My portfolio of hubs has over 3 million views, so somebody is finding value in them.
      
      This was the intro to that email:  "An editor has reviewed your article, How to Grow a Hoya (Wax Plant), and unfortunately, it does not quite meet our current quality bar."  Since all of my 300+ articles are written the same, my concern is that none of them meet the "current quality bar" and will eventually be removed from Dengarden.

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         Kenna McHughposted 2 years agoin reply to this

         Oh my goodness, the last paragraph is disheartening. But it's not a forum email. It has specifics that you can do to correct it. It looks like the other article is older than yours.

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   Kobby95posted 2 years ago

   It's about one specific article, Caren. So go ahead and do the changes (as per the guidelines) that you can be comfortable with and see what happens. No need to assume at this stage that your other articles will suffer a similar fate.

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