I'm pleased to announce that the new and improved flagging reasons that I've alluded to recently have finally arrived. We have broken down some of the umbrella categories like "Substandard" into more specific flags, to help you as users better identify rules violations, and help us as mods more quickly recognize why it is you did the flagging.
Whew! I think that makes sense, if you don't think too hard while reading it.
The new reasons are:
Adult
Mature
Purely Personal
Watermarked or Pixelated
Spun or Poorly Translated
Low Quality
Gambling
Weapon Sales
Other
Overly Promotional
Unrelated Links or Products
Copied Content
Not written in English
Alcohol or Drug Sales
Abuse
Hate Speech or Personal Attack
All of them have explanations within the flag tool itself, but if you've got questions I'd be happy to answer them. (I'd just ask that you first read through the thread to see if anyone else asked the same thing.)
We hope this makes flagging a more transparent and, dare I say enjoyable, experience. Thank you all for your dedication to cleaning up HubPages and keeping it the best place to publish on the web!
I guess I will just have to wait and see if some of mine get flagged for being too personal. I'm not sure I entirely understand this. Could we be given examples?
Purely personal: "I took my dog to the dog park this morning. He ran around and had fun. Then we went home and had lunch."
Acceptable: "Dog parks offer your furry friend fresh air and exercise time. I take my dog to the nearby off-leash park quite often. Fido seems to enjoy it, and I know that it is good for his health. My veterinarian says that dog parks...."
A suggestion I would add is...think of an article you would read in a magazine. Could your hub be an article that could stand alone on its own in a published magazine or would it be better in a Diary?
Magazine type article=HubPages
Diary=Blog
I have read some magazine articles that are pretty personal, but usually within an article. But I think the message I am saying can be taken here.
Hmmm...purely personal, eh? Even after reading these examples and replies, I'm not sure how this standard would be applied except subjectively!
One of my more popular poetry Hubs is "purely personal" ... about the experience of being present at the birth of my first grandchild.
Do I need to remove it or risk having it flagged????
Poetry is something of a special case. We do not moderate poetry for length or as purely personal, precisely because the area is so subjective.
some of this sounds very subjective and eclectic, just hope it is applied with good sense.
Ah - I see "gambling" added to this list. Are these acceptable hubs in that case?
<snipped links - staff took a look already>
I had understood they were acceptable - but now I am not sure.
Thanks.
Mark, I didn't read every single one of those Hubs thoroughly, but they looked fine at first glance. Talking about the rules of a game is perfectly acceptable. Talking about betting real money is not.
I have quite a few sites that use Guinness as one of the ingredients of the recipe - as the alcohol burns off, is this OK or should I unpublish these articles?
It is totally fine to talk about recipes including alcohol. I have some spiked smoothie recipes up myself! The only issue is when you are promoting the sales of alcohol, either through links or product capsules. Selling beer- and wine-making kits is also a no-no, but describing how to make them is totally fine.
So all this time (as an ex-bar owner) I could have been putting up hubs about how to make Sex on The Beach and other cocktails instead of what I've focussed on so far?
NOW she tells me!
Some of these reasons (e.g., Hatefulness and Poor translation) are logical reasons for hubs being flagged. However...I might remind the HubPages administrators that this is **not** the only blogging service on the internet. People are **not** **machines**!!!
HubPages is NOT a "blogging service," and it's that mistaken assumption that is causing some of the content problems on the site. And no, people aren't machines, which is why content that has been put through automatic translation software needs to be flagged too.
No, Hub Pages is not a "blogging service," as relache has stated. The main difference I've seen is that (some) blogging sites do not censor content at all. You are free to say whatever you wish, including the infamous 4-letter-words.
I believe (someone please correct me if I am mistaken), that it is acceptable to provide a link from your Hub Pages article to a blog, in which you can elaborate on what you had to say here, including some statements, words or (related) subject matter that would get flagged or taken down here on Hub Pages.
There is, of course, no guarantee that anyone would follow those outbound links to your blog..... .... ....
One question in hub hopping that I see regularly is that the hub is starting off with a full page picture which I thought it could not do, but there is no lace to flag for that. I mean there are a LOT of the newhubs that have full page pictures to start the hub. Am I mistaken?
There is not a rule against have a picture as your first capsule.
Is there a difference between 'hate speech' and bigotry?
I have come across one writer I find to be very prejudiced in their views - but does that just count as a very strong opinion. Their hubs would be offensive to some, but also many equally-prejudiced people might agree with their opinions. Also there are factual inaccuracies... never allowed to get in the way of a good story!!
Maddie
I value Hubpages and understand why staff are attempting to improve the standard of content published within the site - I flag very poor content myself.
However, I received a series of emails from HP today informing me that a number of my articles have been unpublished for one of the following reasons;
Dubious offers include, but are not limited to:
* "Watch TV/movies on your PC" content
* Promotion of cell phone spyware
* Promotion of HCG supplements/injections
* Promotion of MLM or network marketing programs
* "Run your car on water" content
* Promotion of cash gifting schemes
As the only option above that fits my content is network marketing I decided to study HP terms of service AGAIN to see where this topic was identified as unsuitable....
surprise! nowhere...
I have over 100 articles in this niche - all 100% unique and high quality. All unbiased and non-promotional and written from experience. I do not believe this to be a good move by Hubpages and have written to say so but wanted to flag this within the community as it appears your attempts to educate the uneducated masses within this site at times result in Flagging Frenzy from people who have too much time and too little knowledge on their hands.. (if I've offended anyone reading this - I can live with that)
Network marketing and the companies operating in this area of business for the most part are ethical and legal companies. The problems occur when unethical marketers provide biased information and encourage the wrong people to build an income from home within this niche. None of my articles do this - in fact, I don't even build a network marketing business!!!
So, the bottom line is this; your new flagging reasons have caused me it seems and will cause others to lose faith in this site - I have already lost over 25% of my traffic due to Google and now it seems I am due to lose even more due to Hubpages itself. As someone who has used the site and contributed to it for over two years this is a poor way to treat your community.
I have to say that I am inclined to agree Neil.
I thought this was a community that encouraged free thought and expression.
While I understand reasons behind wanting to regain hub pages' standing in the search results, I do fear however, that these new flagging rules will encourage people to go on witch hunts for what in their opinions are sub standard articles.
I am seriously considering removing my self from this community... It seems to be getting a little petty...
Sorry, but that is just the way I feel...
What if the adsense ads appearing on our hubs have pixellated pictures?
Screen shot attached for your reference.
(Its from your hub, Maddie)
Best Regards
Don't you thing the reason, "other" is a little vague? I also have a hub that was flagged substandard that has been on HubPages for 1 year. It is my highest rated hub. I have changed it several time, only to get the same response. I really don't know what you want.
Dang it! There goes my contribution to the forum!!
Can you explain what "purely personal" is? I have a hub specifically about my dogs that links to my other Malamute hubs as well as one about getting skunk smells out of dogs. Are you saying that someone can flag that hub because it's a personal hub about my dogs and doesn't necessarily serve an educational purpose? Or, am I misunderstanding this?
Hi. There's a really good definition of "purely personal" in this forum topic:
http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/69957#post1525475
I was confused about it, too, so I asked the same question a few weeks ago.
Good question. That rule was designed to prevent people from using HubPages like a blog site, publishing journal-type entries about their daily life. That kind of content doesn't work well with our model for a few reasons, including:
1) They do not appeal to a wide audience, or age well.
2) Hubs are stand-alone pages, unlike blogs, so each entry is taken out of context.
3) They are incredibly hard, if not impossible, to monetize.
We generally only moderate Hubs as "purely personal" if they are not useful, meaningful, or interesting to someone who does not know the author personally.
Example:
- If I write a Hub about my dog Vivi and how cute she is and how much I love her, that would be purely personal.
- If I write a Hub how rewarding it is to adopt a traumatized, previously-abused dog and use my relationship with Vivi to illustrate it, that is a-okay.
I got flagged for writing one about my dog. Too personal. It took me 5 rewrites before the authorities approved. Stupid.
I actually sent an email to team@hubpages a little while ago on this. Could you please add "too short" to the list? It's one that I see frequently.
Also, there's a bit of a tech problem after you submit the flag. See below:
"Too short" is under "Low quality." Also in that category are poorly formatted Hubs, those with broken links or videos, and Hubs with grammar or spelling mistakes that interfere with the readability of the Hub.
I've passed the bug on to Paul Deeds. Thanks for reporting.
First off, feel better soon! Here's some chicken soup to speed up your recovery:
Now back to business. I don't think it's really intuitive that you have to actually select something to see the definition. At least I didn't get it. When Fawntia or whoever gets a spare moment, do you think it's possible that they put those little question marks next to them instead? That makes it more obvious that there's some info available on them.
Thanks for the good wishes, and all your flagging help! You are a rockstar! I will talk to engineering about making this more intuitive.
Maddie,
I watermark my images with my name and copyright sometimes..should I not use these? I have had a ton of images stolen so I watermark them.
What would be the category for something that is purely an advert for one product, with no useful information, comparisons, etc in it?
Aha! 10 points for spotting an error! "Excessive links," should be "overly promotional," encompassing both Hubs with excessive links and purely promotional Hubs. Will fix.
There is always posts about what is too short with word count. Has HP come up with an idea word count for a hub? Many have posted what "they believe" is acceptable, but would be better if it was in a HP guideline such as the new affiliate capsule rule. The count for the affiliate capsule was a great idea.
We do not have a hard-and-fast rule about word count, because as it stands we allow very short poetry Hubs to be published, as well as photo galleries (when correctly categorized).
I can say that in my experience, Hubs of under 200 words or so are usually "low quality," and even Hubs around that mark are often moderated if they do not deliver significant content in the text and/or contain the use of other media (such as photos and videos).
Thanks Maddie. When I hop Hubs, I have always taken into consideration the Poetry Hubs as well as the Photo Gallery.
Hi, Maddie--
Unless something has been drastically changed, I don't think the statement, "...we allow very short poetry Hubs to be published...." is correct.
I joined Hub Pages a little over a year ago, and was trying to publish my poetry at first. I have some very short Hubs in that category (4-line couplets, for example) and from the get-go I was unable to even publish them to start with! I would get a message, "this hub has too little content and cannot be published," or very similar wording.
Apparently, it had something to do with Google ads, but since at that time, I had not yet signed up for AdSense, and was not interested in or trying to make money, I did not care if they 'drew' for ads, as I wanted the poems to stand on their own without the distraction of advertising on the page. I would always select 'non-commercial' and put the ad settings to 'none.' In spite of this,the auto-bots would not allow me to publish those Hubs!
Initially, I found a work-around by adding a "filler paragraph" explaining that it was text that could be ignored, and was simply there as a word-count filler. Then, someone pointed out that adding a photo would get around the 'too short' criterion. I was able to do that for a few, but the majority of my poetry does not have matching photos.
With some of the poems, I was able to group capsules of similar-topics together into a single hub, but on their own the "too short" problem remained, and remains to this day.
These reasons look great. Thanks again for the hard work you all do.
One question that might need to be deferred until later - and that's okay with me: what about content that has been reworded (rewritten), but is actually essentially the same as another article elsewhere (by a different author)? I'm talking about same outline, same talking points, in the same order, same information. Technically, it probably would not be considered copied, but in terms of the ideas presented it actually is. Is that flag-worthy, or should we just ignore it?
You should flag these as copied. Our policy on duplicate content includes close paraphrasing and substantial similarity.
What about "close similarity" with less detail--as in, I write a post either here, or on my blog about a topic, with a "for more details, see... {link}..."
??
Regarding this comment, it seems that there are some highly technical materials that are above the heads of many people and to, shall we say, "translate" them in a HUB into more accessible readability for normal people might be very valuable. But this might still meet every concern mentioned above. Simplification, with credit given to the original source, should be okay in my opinion.
Thanks, Maddie. I'll go hopping right now and try the new flagging format.
I agree with a fellow hubbers answer about hubs being to short. Like most of you I work very hard to try and make my articles informative with lots of details no less than 400 words is my motto!
I find it easy to get carried away. I wonder if there is any concern about HUBs that are too long? Of course I realize they have to be good to hold attention when they are long but other than that, can a whole book be published right there in one HUB, to use an extreme example?
Jack,
I would say that if your Hub did it's job as far as providing the information it was meant to give, and you get your point across, then you wrote enough. A minimum of 500 words usually is required to make any reasonable point. But that's only my opinion.
As far as your question about getting carried away, I sometimes find I'm reaching 2000 words when I write an article for a Hub. Then while I'm editing it, I try to reduce it. I try to keep Hubs around 1000 words when I can. The logic for this is that people don't want to read so much in one sitting.
So my advice is to write first. Then check to see how many words you have and decide if you need to add more by elaborating a bit, or if you need to reduce and make your point quicker. I doubt you'd get flagged for being too short if your Hub works well.
Avoid running into tangents that can lose the reader. Stay focused on the theme of your Hub. Everything else will fall into place and you'll have a Hub that won't be flagged for being too short.
I've just flagged a few 'hubs' applying the new guidelines - I do enjoy hopping - it is a little sadistic but some of these people are really asking for it!
Give us the tools Maddie and we'll do the rest (Excuse me while I wipe the blood from my mouse button!)
I think this is excellent, Maddie, and believe it will in the longer term make Hub Pages an even better and more satisfying place to write and publish than it is at the moment.
I know beyond doubt it will not be the case in the majority of instances but I hope that it doesn't encourage some Hubbers to go on a form of witch hunt. Strangely enough, it was in an offline scenario that I encountered a similarly positive move which drew phenomenal levels of unwarranted criticism and information overload for those who had to process/make judgement upon it. (I was one of them! )
Hopefully all Hubbers reading about the new facilities/rules/conditions will appreciate them but be sensible about the practicalities and timescales that may be involved and that weeding out the lower grade Hubs will be a gradual and not overnight process.
Look forward to being a part of an ever growing and ever improving site.
Hi
Can I have some feedback, please, on photo galleries that are just lots of pictures of actresses, for example, that appear to have been copied from other websites?
Thanks
I can see your point here. If a photo hub is only just copied pictures, retribution or not, it would still be duplicate I would think if all it is...is just photos.
Pictures with word content added that fit the subject of the photo hub I would see differently. (As long as posted in correct category)
Would HubPages be willing to provide fictitious examples of each?
What one person considers mature could be fine to another.
Or what is personal to one person could be just a way to share an interesting or funny experience to another.
I'm concerned that much the reasons could be rather subjective.
*I think there are many active members on HubPages that feel targeted.
That would be amazing. Even if they were just really large photos explaining it (so that the content technically doesn't exist to hurt HubPages ranking.)
I come across some well written hubs that are still overly promotional and I feel bad flagging them, it would be nice to see a variety of examples of what's acceptable and what is not.
Also, I saw a warning message that read something like "deceptive tags or invalid category".
There was no way to fix it. I rewrote most of it (yes, it was short) and still I could not resubmit.
I finally just deleted the entire thing.
Hello, I recently created an article about pepper spray being used in self defense. I did not even think that putting amazon ads for pepper spray would be promoting selling an item (this completely slipped my mind). Was my article flagged for that sole reason? Or can I not post the article at all being that pepper spray can be used as a weapon?
LOL, we are positively encouraged to write hubs about things that are sold on Amazon or Ebay and so long as you use Amazon/Ebay capsules they are not considered links as such, except that the new rules requires 50 words for every capsule.
The overly promotional aspect refers to outside companies - affiliate links and other sites - you must have seen them - hubs that are written purely to promote another company or website, with very little information on them, enticing the reader to click on to the link to find out more.
If you hover your mouse over a link, you will see the address it goes to in the bottom left corner of your screen.
Anymore than 2 to the 1 domain is against the rules.
I think this might be helpful, so there is at least a standard to work from. I still read posts about what's acceptable and what's not from various hubbers, and it doesn't match. As was earlier mentioned, some of this can be subjective.
But I'm sure it will make the process easier overall. Thanks.
Hi. I've been in HP for 4 months already but honestly, I don't know how the flagging system works. That being the fact, I don't know if my hubs are being flagged.
Could you please cite examples of what's acceptable and those that are not? How do we know that our hubs got the flag?Thank you.
If you see any hubs that break any of HPs rules, flag it. All the flagging does is bring that hub to a moderator's attention. There are thousands of new hubs being published every day and they miss loads unless we flag them.
Don't worry about making the odd mistake or two. I have done that myself by flagging what looked like a really short hub, when in actual fact all they had done was put the comments capsule near the top. If I'd scrolled down I'd have seen the content which was fine.
The call to unpublish is the moderator's anyway. Flagging doesn't unpublish them.
I still think we should concentrate more on our own hubs, writing better quality stuff, not on running around whipping (flagging) each other. It's not OUR BUSINESS, it's Hubpages's business. If they think they have to do it, let them do it. I personally think it is not right for me to judge somebody else's work. Lots of masterpieces were created in literature (Charlotte Bronte, Soljenitsin - first that came to my mind)from personal experience. Personal experience that makes things interesting. We have to be more tolerant to that. We all humans, we do same mistakes, but to understand our mistakes, personal experience of others might be what we need! And we NEED to share that sometimes. I hope you understand what I am trying to say.
Not everything standard is interesting, sometimes it's just BORING!
HubPages is asking us to flag content that appears to be in violation of the TOS as part of how this site was designed to operate. That's why the flag system was constructed in the first place.
I don't see any problem with that at all. In fact, I think it correctly encourages authors to make sure they have quality content, and of course, HP looks more professional and useful.
Exactly, relache, so I can go and flag whom ever I do not like, that's how it sounds to me. Or is it just me being paranoid?
You can flag anyone you don't like to your heart's content, but if they haven't broken any rules, no action will be taken.
Come on folks, let's hub hop and clear this site up.
When you find a hub that's badly written/spun/translated/too short etc etc, stop hopping for moment to have a look at the hubber's previous work.
Flag that too if it's of the same quality.
Home Girl, I didn't like the slap. That's why we need to help the staff clear this site up.
I'm not sure how you are getting that interpretation, so I'm going to have to go with "paranoid."
If you read what Maddie has posted repeatedly, the act of flagging a Hub just brings it to the attention of the moderators. When they review the Hub, if nothing is genuinely wrong, nothing happens. If an actual violation is occurring, then they take the appropriate action.
If you go around flagging Hub that you just don't like, and those Hubs are not actually in violation of the TOS, nothing will happen to those Hubs. But if you kept doing it, I'm guessing that the moderators might say something to you about it.
Well, I understand that ... theoretically. May be. Don't forget, guys, that I grew up in a socialist country. It takes its toll, that's why I said "paranoid". Sometimes certain features, movements, decisions, big dogs on a leash, sudden violence,etc., reminds me of my past. Who read Orwell's "1984" at least have an idea. You are to watch everybody, even your parents(?) and tell authorities when they (your parents) do something wrong(illegal). It was praised and practised, not in Latvia as far as I know (where I grew) but in Russia for sure. If you google out of curiosity - Pavlik Morozov -, you'll get a good example of it.
I just wanted to explain my side of vision.
I was getting ready to give the Thumbs Up to IzzyM and relache, then I read this. It definitely helps to be reminded of your background, to make it easier for the rest of us (even lurkers like me) to understand where you are coming from.
But do keep in mind that here the reason why we're asked to help flag is not to give the authorities more power for keeping people in line (as with totalitarian governments) but to help keep costs down, so that the staff can do their work with fewer paid moderators. Our volunteer help makes it more possible for this self-publishing platform to be financially viable.
And another difference is simply the fact that if we don't like it here, we can leave here and find other places to post relatively easily - in contrast to the way we would probably have to struggle to leave a tightly ruled, Orwellian country.
Another thing to remember, before we start talking about the First Amendment and being oppressed, is that this is HP's house, and we voluntarily ask to come in. The rules they give us while inside their house are ones that we accept voluntarily. We wouldn't (or shouldn't) be invited to someone's house and then leave a mess.
It's not like we're being forced to join Hubpages and write.
It has actually been several months since I have seen or heard anyone pull out the ol' First Amendment / Free Speech blarney, and I'm not sure why you have brought that up now. As you see in the discussion with Home Girl, her reluctance to flag Hubs relates to her upbringing in a socialist country. When she reminded us of that fact, it was easier to understand her perspective, and so I responded to that effect. A wee bit later, IzzyM gave a wonderful response to HG's post, and that post is well worth reading.
You know, you're right. I got so caught up reading this entire discussion today, that I didn't think about what she said about her upbringing. This whole discussion had lots of great information, but can get confusing. And reading IzzyM's post, I agree, good points in there.
I got a flagging as "poorly structured" may be you forgot to mention that in the list.
I am not always in want to be liked but I always want to be understood. That's why I tried to explain. Thanks to those who paid attention.
When people tried to leave the socialist "paradise", sometimes they attempted to swim The Baltic Sea through,risking being shot from one side (Latvia) as a traitor or from another(Sweden) - as a spy. I do not remember if any attempt was successful but I know people tried. Some people were just not allowed to go anywhere. it was all before 1992. Now things are different there.
Home Girl, thank you for explaining. Your background is unique and difficult to understand in the West and yes I read 1984 when at school, and the whole idealism to me was awful. That and Animal Farm. "We are all equal, but some are more equal than others".
I never could adapt to a communist state, but I suppose if you lived there, you didn't have the choice.
But honestly, flagging substandard hubs is not in the same league, though I can see where you are coming from.
Flagging is not a matter of permitting or not permitting freedom of expression, whether in art or politics. It is there to enable Hubpages to weed out poor quality material. Providing a hub does not break one of the quality rules and does not deal with a banned topic, it has full rights to existence. All the rules are there up-front, and everyone has full freedom to decide whether to contribute to this site or publish elsewhere.
Hubs that simply exist to generate backlinks for affiliate marketers, garbage that has been spun together so as to stuff in words that the "author" hopes will result in high-paying Google ads appearing, screeds written by semi-illiterates with no knowledge of spelling, grammar or style: all this rubbish helped to put us in the front line of the attack by Google on poor quality search results.
In addition to the financial implications of the Google slap, there is also the fact that those of us who try to write decent hubs, be they sales-oriented, scientific, literary or some mixture of these, would like to think we are contributing to a quality site. The faster we can cull out the c__p, the better for all of us!
WOW! Enlightening thread and good discussions. I will have a look at the new categories of flagging over the next couple of days, and thanks!
PI
Fantastic coaching! Hub Pages has done it again! Love this idea. I have allot to learn and look forward to watching this closely.
At work, I coach my staff all the time - here on Hub Pages I was deflated when two of my Hubs were pulled and then I calmly and objectively reflected - HP was right. I must work harder as a writer because it does not come naturally to me - these flagging tips will be a big help.
Thank you! Kudos to Hub Pages once again!
This is a great idea and works well...even newbies can now flag hubs for proper reasons. Congrats HP on your continuous improvement!!
I got a violation. I think it is because I have two links to sign up for hubpages. Here is another hub, do you think that is why (this hub was not flagged, the one that is flagged I can't show you because it is pending re-publishing)
<snipped link>
Also, it would be nice if the hubs in question were not unpublished but just given a warning so that you have a chance to fix the problem. It seems to take forever to get them published again.
Do you think having only one link would be ok? Anyone? I've written to HP team but they haven't answered me yet.
We are extremely backed up in both emails and submitted Hubs to review, so please be patient with us.
Unrelated links are not permitted on your Hub, even if they are links to other Hubs.
This thread is for discussing the new flagging reasons only. If you have a question about your modded Hubs, please email us and be patient awaiting a reply.
I have emailed you, and yes I am anxious as I would like to at least know what is wrong so I can fix it.
I wouldn't be so anxious if the hub had not been unpublished.
I just told you what the problem was.
It is not practical for us to review a Hub, send a notification, and then re-review a Hub to see whether or not it's been changed before unpublishing it. The mod team look at hundreds of Hubs a day. Reviewing each one twice would double our work load, and we are already backed up, as you are experiencing.
I will not respond to further inquiries about individual mod cases on this thread.
I suppose it's more efficient for someone to guess at what it is and send it back only to be wrong and have to do it again? Your process is not working, obviously.
Brie, scan through some of the other forum threads. There are others experiencing similar problems. The more time the mods have to take repeating themselves, the less time they have to do the work you truly want them to do.
Yea ok, I thought that was what I was doing here...but thanks.
We are constantly working to improve user experience. That is why we unveiled these new moderation and flagging reasons. They are more specific and will hopefully cut down on the back-and-forth.
The email you were sent clearly stated: "Unrelated links or products." I'm not sure what's unclear about that, but we can continue this discussion via email. I will go and search for yours now, though I'm not sure what else there is to be said about it. The rest of the community does not need to be bored with the details.
Hi Maddie,
I am glad to see that you are clearly defining what is substandard. It helps with explaining to newbies what is allowed and not allowed, and it will make flagging much easier. And thank you for including spun content.
Change is good and it is all part of growth. Thanks again for the updates.
Well Home Girl I'm kind of with you. I'm going to hop, hop, hop, but I don't want to get into the flagging for two reasons, 1) I am a far cry from an established writer to be criticizing or crucifying someone else's work 2) I feel bad for the newbies who instead of a flag making them feel unworthy a nice comment of constructive criticism on editing would do the job Besides I'm addicted to rankings.
Thanks for standing up for what you think is write.
See that's another reason I don't even catch my own mistakes sometimes. Right not Write although it was kind of a play on words.
Maddie,
I think you guys are doing a great job. Unappreciated by some maybe, but still you are providing a great sevice. The new flagging is more explicite and I believe it will be a big help. Keep up the good work.
OK I stand corrected. I am the first to admit when I may have been mistaken (that always sounds so much better than WRONG) and I guess hopping proved that pretty quick. When you start talking about getting rich quick and becoming a millionaire.....Wow Oh and just for the record I never said any wasn't doing a fabulous job. I just said I'm totally not the one to be doing it and maybe there are some other options for the newbies.
Again I stand (well sit actually) corrected
I am now a seasoned Hubber for almost 9 months, 126 hubs and about 144 followers, and I think I follow about 100 hubbers as well. I enjoy reading positive hubs, hubs that stimulate my intellect, and hubs which entertain my sense of humor and also hubs that touch my heart and give me purpose. Inappropriate hub content is very well outlined in this forum, and though I don't want to be considered like the "hub Police" I do want to stop any one who uses Hubpages to vent or express themselves peversely. I am of Christian Faith, but my respect for human nature is universal, and it does not matter what faith a person is, just so that every hub writer follows the rules and practices good judgement in what they say.
I am in total support of the new flagging practices as they are deemed necessary.
Dear Maddy
one of my hubs which i published 3yrs ago got unpublished for mature content. the hub was about women taking off their cloths for a cause eg PETA. i emailed the HP team to ask what i should do to get my hub published because the hub was not about sex and it didnt contain any vulgarites or porn pictures. i didnt get a reply so i submitted it back up for publication and it got rejected. this happened about 3 times. my account then got banned and i couldnt even post in the forums anymore. isn't that a bit too harsh? it wasn't like i blatantly posted a porn hub.I wasn't even fighting with the HP team to keep my hub. I was ready to amend the hub and emailed the hub team asking them what i should do but i didnt get a reply. and the hub was 3 yrs old. i havent visited the HP site for sometime and i wasnt up to date with new rule changes. Can i get my account back? i'll delete the hub if i have to.
ashwinspga3, you need to e-mail the team about this, since it is about a specific Hub, rather than about the flagging standards in general. team@hubpages.com
A business related hub doesn't mean it is overly promotional. I think there is confusion in this category. A business or company can use HP to inform the public about its services/products as long as it remains within Terms of Use.
Flag happy hubbers need to be careful. There is a section in this article in which Paul Edmondson talks about how businesses use HP.
http://www.allbusiness.com/company-acti … 473-1.html
I am starting to get hubs unpublished because they are overly promotional (two already) because "Solely or excessively promotes another site(s), especially when Hub links all point to one site." Each hub I write has original content not posted anywhere else, but since I write mostly in one niche I cross promote my hubs to Squidoo and blogs and vice versa.
I am getting really upset here. Are they going to unpublish all of my hubs since they have links to Squidoo and my blogs? I had to spend a whole day fixing the new amazon/ebay to text rule and all my hubs were good. Now this. I give up! I make good money here, but I am beginning to think that Hubpages platform may no longer work for me.
Janet~
It sounds like you have links to the same place on All of your hubs, is this right? Or most of them?
If so, then this is where the problem may come from.
I have a niche (nfl football) where I ran into the same problem once with a hub since I linked it to an external site that I had already linked to on the existing hubs. The links were relevant and there are not that many really authoritative sites to link to. But the problem was I had added the link to too many hubs. I knew the rule, but it slipped my mind in that hub, thus it got flagged by HP and unpublished.
I went and rearranged my links within the hubs to spread out my links more evenly to the niche of hubs instead of all of them in each hub.
This may help you to try this method, just a suggestion.
The problem with the two hubs that were moderated recently was the product to word ratio (and there should have been an automated warning on them indicating that). It had nothing to do with links.
Paul: The emails stated, "Violation: Overly Promotional - Solely or excessively promotes another site(s), especially when Hub links all point to one site." The alert on the hubs themselves also states Overly Promotional and doesn't say anything about "too many products".
I fixed all of my hubs which had too many products, so that was all done awhile ago and my hubs were published fine.
So, now I am very confused. Should I go through the rest of my hubs and remove all links to Squidoo and to my blogs so that they are not unpublished as well?
Below that didn't the email say:
The rules - read these carefully:
* Your Hub can have a MAXIMUM of 2 links to any one domain (tinyurl and other cloakers are considered wildcards). Links in the image source field of images count toward this limit.
* You can not give a short teaser and a link to "read more" or "continue". The Hub must have the full content you want to present and that your title implies.
* Your Hub may not contain an RSS feed that directs to the same site as a link within the body of the hub.
* Your Hub may not have excessive Amazon or EBay capsules. Please maintain a word-count-to-product ratio of 50-to-1.
I looked at your two hubs and they are fine now, if you submit them for publication they will be republished.
Yes, Paul, it did list those items on the email, but the Violation on top was listed as "Solely or excessively promotes another site(s)". Anyway, I'll give it a few days to see if they get published again. Hopefully, no other ones get removed.
Thanks very much for your help and attention to my situation. I appreciate it.
Edited to Add: Paula, that is the same email I received.
The confusion is with the header on the email talking about links, and the frustration is that at least in my case, I had already altered this hub when I got the original email, then it showed okay. Honestly, I had so many to change that I didn't count the items, just deleted until the system said it was okay.
Edited to add: I just deleted more products, and resubmitted.
These two hubs have been republished...thanks.
Now, here for the confusion, I just got another hub taken down in the same fashion. The same violation listed in the email and the same alert on the hub as you see below. I don't believe this hubs breaks the amazon/ebay/text ratio since I already fixed it awhile back before the 3/25 deadline and the alert was removed. I have a sinking feeling that is not going to be the last hub removed and if I don't know what I am fixing, this is going to turn into a huge mess. The links on this hub include:
5 related hubpages links
2 affiliate links
3 photo credits (flickr)
What's the problem? What do I fix?
Hey Janet. Maybe I can help.
You mention "3" credits to Flickr. If this is a link then you have 3 links to one domain (flickr) which is a violation. You can only have 2. If two or all 3 pictures are from the same person, then list all three by the person's name and in one link to the person you are giving attribution to.
Actually, the problem here is that you have too many products compared to the amount of text. You currently have 31 words per product, and we ask for 50.
*Sigh* I swore I wasn't going to respond to user-specific mod questions on this thread...
lol, your work is never done Maddie!
Don't you ever get a weekend off?
Maddie, it seems that this problem is like a double whammy when these hubs being unpublished were already fixed from the original email we got a few weeks ago. I know that the one that I had a problem with was, because I emailed the team and asked for a verification to see if I missed any from the first email.
If they passed then, why are they not passing now, and being unpublished since we complied the first time.
This is quite frustrating when we are trying to comply, and still getting unpublished.
While I appreciate the fast republish, it seems like it is making double work for everyone, hubbers and staff included. I know that I spent many hours revising my hubs the first time around. If I am going to have to go back and do it again, the first time was actually time wasted that I could have been doing something else or I could have done what is needed now at that time.
I appreciate your frustration, but the Hub to which I believe you are referring (which was republished an hour and a half ago) did have only 30-something words per product. I'm not sure how you (or we?) missed it.
Lake...I have a hub that goes into detail on the amazon capsule rule if you like to see it. I have photos also to demonstrate. Not sure if I can list it here, but you can see it from my profile. Maybe it could help you with this.
Thanks for the offer, but I do not think that you are really responding to the problem at hand. The problem is that I fixed the hubs already according to the new rules, they were already approved, the alert message was taken off, I requested that the hubs be rechecked so that I wouldn't have to do it again, and now I had one unpublished that was on that original list. This is also what is happening to Janet.
It is not that I am protesting that they need to be changed. Nor that I am refusing to change them. Nor that I do not understand why Hubpages is doing this.
I am protesting the fact that I am having to rechange stuff that was already done once, and approved. This is the issue. I purposefully did it BEFORE the hubs would be unpublished to not have that happen.
Nor can I be the only person this has happened to.
If in my case it only happens to the one hub, I will be greatly relieved. Then I will not have to duplicate work already done. Moderators will not have to moderate an already moderated hub. Double and triple the work already done.
This is the frustration.
Sorry Maddie, I am not blaming you, but it is a real problem.
Maddie: Thanks for the info. However, there has to be some kind of bug going on here. I already fixed all of my product hubs and when the emails went out, there was only one on my list which I since fixed. By the 3/25 deadline, ALL my hub alerts had been cleared and all of my text to sales capsule issues had been resolved.
On the latest hub in question, I just went in and my Amazon capsules are showing more to display than are displaying which I know can happen. However, I KNOW for a fact that I already changed these, but for some reason they reverted back or changed somehow. Don't know why. That is why I am getting these alerts again and getting my already cleared hubs unpublished. It is like I am having to do things twice and it is getting completely frustrating.
That being said, can you atleast include in the alert that the hub has 'too many product listings'? This way I am not running around chasing my tail. I will atleast know what to fix even if I am fixing the same thing twice.
As you can see from my response, I agree with Paula and we seem to be going through the same mess.
I believe it is a bug also.
I suspect that if two alerts are set on one Hub then it could get "stuck". That's my theory anyway.
Otherwise, perhaps some wires got crossed when they updated the reasons with more.
Hi Maddie, I just sent you an email.
Paul, are you moderating this thread today? I just sent Maddie an email regarding an Easter hub that just got unpublished.
Paul,
I got this email for my hub that just got unpublished, yet there is only one link in the entire hub, except for links to related hubs, and ebay capsules. I had already changed the ebay product to text ratio after the first email and it is telling me again that that needs to be changes. I am confused.
The rules - read these carefully:
* Your Hub can have a MAXIMUM of 2 links to any one domain (tinyurl and other cloakers are considered wildcards). Links in the image source field of images count toward this limit.
* You can not give a short teaser and a link to "read more" or "continue". The Hub must have the full content you want to present and that your title implies.
* Your Hub may not contain an RSS feed that directs to the same site as a link within the body of the hub.
* Your Hub may not have excessive Amazon or EBay capsules. Please maintain a word-count-to-product ratio of 50-to-1.
Edited to say: Looks like we typed at the same time. Why is it asking for me to redo what the system accepted the first time?
Edited again to add that this is the beginning of the email: Violation: Overly Promotional - Solely or excessively promotes another site(s), especially when Hub links all point to one site.
Again, there is only one link.
I'm afraid to try and fix my hubs now that I got this notice. I am trying to correct the problems but evidently walking up the wrong tree.
"Your account is in danger of being banned for repeatedly resubmitting Hubs that do not comply with our rules."
we can't see the link, it says no longer published.
too many products? some of your hubs are rather short.
too many hubs with links going back to your blog?
may be overly promotional?
I don't know. What did your original messages say is the problem?
EDIT: what Maddie says. good luck.
Thanks, How many times do I get to make them right? I was told I could be banned.
You have already had quite a number of chances. I would suggest having a native English speaker proofread your Hubs before resubmitting them. Again: Please email us with additional questions. This thread is not for the discussion of individual moderations. I'm getting tired of repeating myself.
What am I doing wrong. Help? If I send it in again I will get banned. I hate to delete this but it looks like I have no choice.
<snipped>
Substandard can mean::
* An empty or short Hub
* Poor spelling or grammar that interferes with the readability/credibility of the Hub
* A Hub with awkward or difficult-to-read formatting
* A Hub with a full-width link, news, comment, rss, or product capsule as the first capsule of the Hub
* A Hub with broken links or missing videos
Nobody can see that Hub except for you and staff. The problem on that particular Hub is low-quality English which make the content difficult for a native English speaker to read, for example this passage:
"If your feeling like a romantic horse and buggy ride to the Julia's Cheese Cake store. Than set it up."
I thought I had brought my hubs into line. Those that I hadn't, I expected an email about.
Got the email, fixed the hubs, and now I am finding more.
What seems to have happened is that there were some that their filter didn't pick up on, and which I missed.
What I am having to do is set Amazon capsules to 1, even though it is already set to 1 by only choosing one product. By leaving the default 3 there, the filters are seeing 3, even when there is only 1.
Now of course, they are unpublishing, which is harmful to hubs that already had ranking.
I could increase my daily hits by 450 just by opening every hub to see if a warning notice remains that I missed!
Not complaining, just saying. It might be helpful to someone.
I've said it before, but obviously it bears repeating:
Please do not post on this thread if you have questions specific to your Hub. If your Hub was moderated, please email us and await a response. This thread is for questions about the new flagging system only.
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