Why are some sent an email and some are unpublished without warning?

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Marisa Wrightposted 13 years ago
Could the HubPages team please explain why some of us are getting warnings about non-compliant Hubs, but others are having their Hubs unpublished with no warning?

I saw this post on another thread today:

http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/74842#post1623078

and it's not the first time I've seen Hubbers saying their Hubs have been unpublished without warning.

I understood that HP were notifying people via email, and giving them a few days to fix any non-compliant Hubs. I thought the main problem was the notification didn't give Hubbers with large portfolios enough time - but it sounds like some people just aren't being notified.

If that is happening, it's rude.
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psycheskinnerposted 13 years ago
I would guess either they have not updated their email address of record or the email is in their spam filter. I didn't think I'd got an email but it was in my junk mailbox. I would guess a lot of email providers have hubpages email blacklisted like they do with a lot of high volume emailers. It can easily be mistaken for spam.
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  darksideposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  That's not the problem. It's the inconsistency between being warned or being told.
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darksideposted 13 years ago
By 'warning' do you mean that they are unpublishing the hub first and then sending an email?

Yes, that is happening.

I have also had emails to warn of a problem yet the hub was not unpublished. So it was fixed without it being pushed into unpublished mode.
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Jason Menayanposted 13 years ago
The email that people are getting is notification about the new standards around affiliate links. Those standards will not be moderated on before May 16th.

For other violations that have been part of our policy beforehand, like the amount of content per Amazon product, we moderate immediately. We gave the advance-warning email for those back in March.

If you're talking about darkside's post, the deceptive title/tags/category standard has been around for a long time (years). I don't know the specifics about that because it's not in his main account.
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  Marisa Wrightposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  Sorry Jason, that IS rude. Now I'm finally understanding why people are so upset.
  
  It's fair enough to be unpublished for major violations of policy. But to be unpublished for a couple of tags? Madness!
  
  Talk about the punishment not fitting the crime.
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  Jason Menayanposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  For four years, we have always followed the exact same protocol. When there is a violation of any kind, the Hub is unpublished and the author is notified immediately by email. The only exception is the rollout of new standards; in that case, we send an email first and then begin moderating in 2 or more weeks.
  
  There has been no change whatsoever to this protocol.
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  Marisa Wrightposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  Yes, but given the change in standards, and therefore the learning curve that Hubbers have to go through to understand what is and isn't allowed, you should've given some thought to changing that protocol.
  
  You may have noticed I've been on these forums defending HubPages (and on other forums which you can't see). I'm very disappointed to find that my defence has been based on a misconception that HubPages was playing fair with its Hubbers.
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  Mutiny92posted 13 years agoin reply to this
  Jason, I believe that the "deceptively titled" issue has been a long term HP policy, yet those still remain en masse.
  
  Maybe I am missing something, but it seems that this rule was not enforced and the hubbers are still allowed to have them published. I would have thought they would be treated like other rules violations that were in place before the update.
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  Jason Menayanposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  Yes, but we don't have an automated tool to identify deceptively-tagged, deceptively-categorized, or deceptively-titled Hubs. They come in primarily as the result of a flag by users. There are probably many Hubs that have been in violation of rules, the type that are difficult/impossible to detect in an automated fashion, that we haven't yet moderated.
  
  (It looks like our posts crossed a bit here. Didn't mean to write the same thing twice.)
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  Mutiny92posted 13 years agoin reply to this
  no worries! I simply do a search for "www. login" or "www. logon" or "www. myaccount" on your site and am able to find them.
  
  Hopefully one of your gurus can write a script to find those...I suspect it would save everyone a lot of time in the long run.
  
  Have a nice night and thanks for your quick replies on a Sunday night!
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  Jason Menayanposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  If the moderators' queue ever gets short enough that they can do this, I will definitely give them the suggestion.
  
  BTW I just flagged one called "Facebook login page" for having a deceptive title. Not all of them in that search, though, had a deceptive title.
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  psycheskinnerposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  I think it is clear that staff only deal with content that is flagged or otherwise queued. So lots of stuff is being missed but hardly for a sinister reason.
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  darksideposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  Just so everyone knows, Jason checked the hubs in question and they were categorized under a sub-category under "European holidays". Which I took to mean 'holiday destinations'.
  
  But that is under the 'Holidays & Celebrations' category instead of under the appropriate "Travel and Places" category.
  
  So they've been changed now, and resubmitted.
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  darksideposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  As of this morning two hubs are cleared and republished. Just waiting on the other two.
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darksideposted 13 years ago
Changes have been made. More changes need to be made, to the way the flagging and filtering and notifications are being done.

I'm sure that there are people who have had more hubs unpublished in the last four weeks than they have in the previous four years.
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psycheskinnerposted 13 years ago
I am not sure what the issue is. If the hub is not acceptable it is unpublished and an email sent. The requirements changed and we all got an email about that. Every seems to me to have been treated the same as each other...?
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  darksideposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  The problem is that many of these hubs were acceptable. Now the goalposts have been moved. Having hundreds of hubs unpublished effects people who make money from them. So they change it. Then the next round of changes come into play, they have to go through those hubs again. Rinse and repeat.
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psycheskinnerposted 13 years ago
Well, Google did move the goalposts. Not much we can do about that other than move our game. They are going to keep on moving too, by the look of it.
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  darksideposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  How a person, or a business, responds to that is something that much can be done about.
  
  Previously the unpublishing of the occasional hub wasn't a big issue. How would YOU feel if you had to go through a few hundred hubs? And then once you've tidied all that up, you get more notifications that you've got more hubs unpublished.
  
  At what point do you just throw in the towel? The third or fourth time this happens?
  
  These are hubs that are still performing. That are still making money. The only time they're not making money is when they get flagged and unpublished for some infraction that may or may not be real, and may or may not be the solution to the changes that Google has made.
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psycheskinnerposted 13 years ago
I guess if a person a large number of finely tuned Hubs that aren't going to fit in to the post-Panda world, it might not be worth it. but I guess I don;t see that as being hubPages problem.

I think it makes more sense to appease the Panda than try and make money off another platform. Adsense is still King.

If the hubs were making money in ways the Panda disapproves of they need to go to help HubPages float in the rankings again.
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  darksideposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  Please make a list here of what Panda disapproves of.
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  psycheskinnerposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  From what I can tell: content farms--especially ones that are very large and have limited editorial standards. Also link farms. They prefer sole proprietor sites.
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  Eric Graudinsposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  Adsense is crap.
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  psycheskinnerposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  It's still where I make most of my ad money. And it is still mostly how Hubpages is monetised. So... if you really hate adsense this is not the place to be.
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  WryLiltposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  How many hubs does Eric have?
  
  And your post :
  
  "From what I can tell: content farms--especially ones that are very large and have limited editorial standards. Also link farms. They prefer sole proprietor sites."
  
  Summed it up perfectly. People DON'T know how to appease the panda. So they're doing things they THINK will work. But doing it haphazardly, often without background research or good reason, as well as on smaller issues while ignoring the large, can get a lot of people's backs up.
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  Marisa Wrightposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  No one would disagree with you on that score. What they're complaining about is:
  
  1. Instead of educating experienced Hubbers to update and improve their Hubs to meet the new challenge, HubPages has taken a draconian approach, unpublishing Hubs without warning for the tiniest of violations (such as one pixelated image or one 'deceptive' tag).
  
  2. While moderators are spending their energy identifying miniscule infractions on otherwise good Hubs, the flood of spammy new Hubs continues. This is seen by many as setting the wrong priorities. Surely it would've been easy for HubPages to concentrate its efforts on Hubbers and Hubs with low scores - not a perfect way of identifying rubbish, but better than what they're doing now.
  
  3. Some Hubbers have had the same Hubs unpublished multiple times, each time for a different problem, and often for reasons they didn't understand. In particular, many experienced Hubbers used personal or code tags, following the example of Hub projects - we were never told they were no longer allowed. The rules about RSS feeds were also never clearly explained.
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  Jason Menayanposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  Yes, and the number of those infractions was miniscule.
  
  If you ask most of the loudest critics of our recent policy changes if they've ever been moderated for spinning Hubs, or if they are affected by the affiliate link change, and they answer honestly, you might be surprised what you hear... it might make the tag/RSS feed/pixelated image "controversy" a bit of a red herring.
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  Marisa Wrightposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  Nobody's been affected by the affiliate link change yet (deadline 15th) and we are all being notified about that by email, not getting unpubbed for it - so it's not relevant to my post.
  
  The tag/RSS feed controversy is important not for the number of people affected, but for the fact that the vast majority of people affected genuinely thought they were doing the right thing.
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  Jason Menayanposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  We announced the affiliate change a couple of weeks ago. Hubs haven't been moderated for it yet, but people have known what's coming for a couple of weeks now.
  
  And we have been moderating a lot of spun content. And when I say a lot, I mean many thousands as many Hubs as those moderated for a nonsense tag or unspecific RSS feed.
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  lrohnerposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  Jason -- I'm one of the loudest critics of your recent policy changes. Can you please point out those hubs of mine that were spun? And can you please point out what percentage of my hubs were hit by the affiliate link change? Or am I just not complaining loudly enough?
  
  You are making sweeping generalizations that are way off the mark and tossing out your fair share of red herrings.
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  Jason Menayanposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  I said "most." I never accused you, nor did I name anyone in particular.
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  lrohnerposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  When in doubt, resort to semantics. Yup...
  
  FYI, Merriam-Webster's definition of 'most': the majority of <most people>
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  Mutiny92posted 13 years agoin reply to this
  I agree with Marisa - there are draconian actions for apparently minor infractions (that were completely acceptable in practice) and great leeway for gross violations.
  
  It gives a real mixed message in my mind. A tag on a hub that was created for a valid reason to group similar hubs together in a RSS feed is a LOT SMALLER of a problem than the "in-your-face" violation of:
  
  From Simone: If you see a Hub that is misleading (like "Facebook Login", etc), PLEASE flag it. That title is misleading and we have a moderation category for it ("Deceptively Titled").
  
  Just for kicks, look at the search for http://hubpages.com/search/include:hubs+facebook+login
  
  It seems that if there is a bias to unpublish, it should be for the explicit violations that are CLEARLY posted for the EXACT words shown as the example...and not the tag/RSS issues - it just doesn't seem that the HP actions match the severity of the hubber's violation.
  
  Like I said earlier, I am sure they are being worked on, but it sure does send a odd message...
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  Jason Menayanposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  Mutiny92: All I can tell you is that the moderators work off a queue. It is a very, very long queue, some of it created by user flagging and some of it by automated flagging. But they work through that queue in sequence. We have no automated flagging for the RSS thing, and, honestly, almost no one has really had their Hubs moderated for this; those few were affected were probably flagged by users, or for another reason entirely (Hubs can be moderated for multiple things at the same time).
  
  If you notice any of those deceptively-titled Hubs that you flagged were not taken down within a week, please feel free to email me and I can check it out.
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  Mutiny92posted 13 years agoin reply to this
  Do you feel like a punching bag yet?
  
  You guys are doing great!
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  Jason Menayanposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  Haha, thank you.
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psycheskinnerposted 13 years ago
I guess I just don't see the unpublishing approach emotively. I had some unpublished, I fixed them, they went back up.

Content farms have few staff, they tend to rely on writers just working stuff out based on bare bones information.

The ongoing influx of crap pages is certainly an issue. But I can imagine what would happen if they started having to approve every new post and rejected most of them.

I bet it would make this thread look like a garden party.
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psycheskinnerposted 13 years ago
I am judging what Panda does by what Google says it does and what it did to my sites. My content farm pages went down (about 30%), my own domain pages went up (about 30%) (my earnings stayed the same overall).

So what am I missing?
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  Eric Graudinsposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  What are you missing?
  Well, for one thing you need to be looking beyond your own site before making judgements on what Panda does.
  Perhaps the quality of the content of your "content farm" might not be as good as you think.
  
  Other "Content Farms" with high quality content (ie HowStuffWorks) have increased their traffic since the Panda update.
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  psycheskinnerposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  Yes I did. I also looked at stats relating to other sites--that looked pretty similar. And I write for five different content farms, none of which are "mine".
  
  But I was really asking, if there is some great truth about Panda that I and the tech press are missing... what is it?
  
  Everything I see suggests that Panda is exactly what Google says it is. And the new changes coming down the pipe on peer-moderated search may be even more disruptive.
  
  That's just a fact of life so long as Adsense had the lion;s share of the market.
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Eric Graudinsposted 13 years ago
Jason,
I have a theory that all of these changes have less to do with the Panda update than a strategic move by HubPages to get rid of all affilite links and minimise or eliminate other forms of income generation except for your own HPAds program.

Am I correct, or delusional?

cheers,
Eric G.
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  WryLiltposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  This makes sense if we believe the recent staff post stating that these changes were actually on their way in pre-panda.
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  Jason Menayanposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  That's incorrect.
  
  The banning of certain affiliate links, and the banning of affiliate links in certain categories is because these tend to bring lots and lots and lots of spun, low-quality content, and spammy promotional techniques.
  
  We will never close off AdSense as a monetization option for those who have no interest in the HubPages Ad Program (and we have been crystal clear that the program does not enhance the earnings of everyone, and have suggested that if your overall earnings do not increase with the Program, you should disable it).
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Buy Tools Onlineposted 13 years ago
I can't post under my real username, because my forum privileges have been removed; although it doesn't take a genius to work out who I am - particularly if you have access to my IP address or bother to check out the links in my profile. I expect the privileges to be removed from this account too of course, that is a given, but I only have one thing to say about the changes and the discontent anyway so that doesn't matter.

Ultimately I feel as if there is a huge blur sitting somewhere in between the HP team and the HP community. That blur represents a line, or a boundary, which has faded somehow over time. That line in turn represented a clear understanding of the roles of the writers and the role of the staff. The problem with that blurry line is that both sides now see themselves as the customers and the other party as the service providers.

HP see writers as a party providing them with a service, they are our client, and we must appease our clients at all times or we will no longer be accepted as service providers. The writers see HP as a platform from which to host content that they own, just like you might use BlueHost or HostGater to host a website. If you become dissatisfied with the service provided by your website host, then you switch hosts. It is a great inconvenience, a cost, and sometimes gives us a headache. This is effectively what is happening with HP, people are switching hosts because they are unhappy with the service.

And it isn't the quality of the platform or the hosting (in other words, not necessarily the changing terms of service or the loss of traffic), it is the attitude of some of the customer service representatives. HP set the terms, we own our content, and as a result of us owning our content, we do see ourselves as customers of the service provider. And that is the 100% correct way to view the relationship.

I have lurked around a bit (just to clarify, no complaints about the forum ban), and can honestly say that all I have seen is customers treated with contempt, patronized, lied to, given factually inaccurate information, or inconsistent information, and a serious disregard for their time (on a site which has promoted itself as a means of an additional part-time income, not a relationship which requires people to dedicate hour upon hour on demand).

I won't name any names of course, I'm not into upsetting people or calling people out, but HP would see a much busier bunch of content hubbers on the forums if they were treated as customers rather than freelancers. They work for free, remember? If you start paying a one-off fee, for lifetime rights, then by all means boss people around as much as you want. As things stand many Hubbers have been scared off by a new ugly blame culture, HP needs a whole new approach to PR and customer service.

I believe that there is not currently any employee with the job title 'Customer Service Manager', maybe that is the root of your problem. The US is supposed to be the best country in the world for customer service, right?

Just to allow you to remove priviledges on all of my sub-accounts, here they are:

Footballers
Famous Quotes
Classyphotohubs
Luxury Watches
Buy Tools Online
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  Jason Menayanposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  1. Is there another sub-account that you're forgetting? What kind of content appeared in that account?
  
  2. Is there a reason you were banned from the forum? (And how many times were you banned from the forums?)
  
  3. Would there possibly be any conflict of interest in you portraying HubPages unobjectively?
  
  Answers to these questions might help put your post in better context.
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  Buy Tools Onlineposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  1. Possibly, not that I can remember. I don't see that as relevant. Unless you are referring to my primary account? As far as I am aware there have never been any issues with the quality of my content, neither does my content have any relevance whatsoever to any of my points. Oh, I also have:
  
  ryan kett
  famous websites
  
  Is there an underlying point there? Or did you just not ascertain who I was before replying?
  
  2. Yes, I was banned for a foul mouthed tirade. Like I said, "just to clarify, no complaints about the forum ban".
  
  3. I have absolutely no desire for my 679 pages of Hubpages content continuing to underperform, and would like nothing other than to see it win traffic again. I assume that you are making reference to my little Wordpress site on $20 a month shared hosting? The one that was established to provide Hubpages members with a platform from which to drive traffic to their Hubs? It would be a sad day if HP considered that a competitor. Well, not for me I guess.
  
  Again, the blame culture, the need to identify villains. The "it's not us it's them" attitude. Jason, I'm sure that your a fantastic marketing manager, and a real nice guy, you did come across as a very nice guy in person. But, I'm not sure that your over-sensitivity on the forum is doing much good. A "we are all in this together" approach would perhaps be more suitable. You lot have lost lots of money, us lot have lost lots of money, that is common ground right?
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  Jason Menayanposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  1. I was thinking about the account "Famous Websites". We were just talking earlier in the thread about the sort of content that used to be in that account.
  
  3. I was asking if there was any conflict of interest that would encourage you to portray HubPages unobjectively. This post came to mind:
  http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/74920
  
  It's your right to create another Website, but if you're calling for Hubbers to move their content for it, it might affect the way you portray how we do things here.
  
  Notice I'm not blaming you for anything - you're entitled to your opinion, no matter what the motivation - but if there is a conflict of interest, it would be fair to mention it, wouldn't it?
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  Buy Tools Onlineposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  I would have thought that Hubpages would be supportive of a platform on which hubbers can recycle content deemed unwelcome by HP themselves. After all, that is time that they have invested. I specifically state 'rejected' content and content which isn't working. Did you read the comments? The bit where I said that I wouldn't advocate moving content unless it was getting no traffic at all? Does that effect you in any way?
  
  I started building that site in December, it was initially a bookmarking site, for Hubbers. I'm sorry if my great intentions pre-slap are now in any way considered sinister or cynical. I don't want to see people wasting content or time, and that really is all that I advocate. I also tweeted telling people that clickbank links are accepted, should I declare this also?
  
  I'm glad that you mentioned the 'Famous Websites' account Jason. That one got removed pretty quickly. Of course, at the time, I was under the impression that such content was fully acceptable, seeing as there were accounts full of hundreds of articles using the same format long before and long after you deleted my one. Neither did the TOS ever specifically state that such a format was not permitted. The user 'writers' is one that springs to mind.
  
  That is the perfect example, of retrospective blame and inconsistent policies. That account was removed very quickly, within a week or so, the other one remained for many months afterwards.
  
  But kudos. My 30 odd hubpages on 'Famous Websites' clearly seriously detract from the 25000 page views per day that I brought this site over a long period, and the 10000 a day that I still bring.
  
  Am I on the Hubpages dart board?
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  Jason Menayanposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  You're entitled to your opinion, Ryan. And thank you for answering my questions.
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  Buy Tools Onlineposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  Your welcome, anyway, I'm not allowed on here so I had better run along
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  mistyhorizon2003posted 13 years agoin reply to this
  This sounds unfair Jason. As far as I can see Ryan merely provided a platform that was not penalising hubs for minor reasons, and was willing to 'adopt' hubs that Hubpages had suddenly decided were no longer suitable. These same hubs would get adverts from Google on Ryan (and others) sites, and could use Clickbank links etc. Clearly Ryan's site 'Excerptz.com' was not effected by Panda, so good luck to him and all who publish on Excerptz.
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  Buy Tools Onlineposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  Here is a quote from me on the Excerptz How It Works Page:
  
  "The biggest and best website on the internet for revenue sharing is Hubpages, but no other site comes close. At Excerptz we believe that we can become bigger and better than the smaller competition and really compliment your activities on sites such as Hubpages. Of course, we aren't trying to be Hubpages, they are a huge business. We aren't naming names, but there are many others out there that we simply feel don't cut the mustard."
  
  That, and the Hubpages banner which sat at the top of the site and drove thousands of visitors to Hubpages for months, should be all that needs to be said about my initial intentions. In other words, I haven't jumped on some sort of bandwagon on 23rd February to mop up the droves of deserting "content farm" writers.
  
  Smaller competition can be considered sites like Snipsly, who are small fry. Another site with tonnes of outward pointing links leading to HP.
  
  Neither have I been planting people on this forum to steal writers, not my fault if people share experiences, that is out of my hands. I am one of about six hubbers with small wordpress revenue sharing sites. My standard line is to tell people to build their own sites, I'm not interested in money, it is a loss making venture! In fact the more people that come, the more the hosting is costing me, and the more money I lose
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  Buy Tools Onlineposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  I look forward to the removal of the following 2672 hubpages, Jason
  
  http://hubpages.com/profile/www.ibuzzup.com
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  Aware1posted 13 years agoin reply to this
  I second that, Ryan! Seeing these accounts CONTINUOUSLY getting ignored from removal after countless flags is gross neglect. It is also the I reason am not happy about how so many high quality hubbers are being treated. This includes the new policy changes. I have many fond memories on this site and it would be a shame if HP does not ever come back.... I do wish the site and writers the best.
  
  My personal opinion is that HP is targeting the wrong issues, by attacking affiliate links. I've seen so much crap like keyword stuffed accounts and all these url deceptions STILL published after many free labour attempts of reporting them. It seems that maybe with these accounts seemingly being below the radar and quite possibly a huge profit, that they are being allowed to stay.
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  Mutiny92posted 13 years agoin reply to this
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  Aware1posted 13 years agoin reply to this
  Thank you for your response, Mutiny92. I understand that these shady/spammy accounts provide a great deal of traffic to HP. But, the point is that they should not be above the TOS, else it is a huge BIAS and the truly active (or now non-active highly regarded hubbers) should not be having such and issue with any of their hubs that were inline with the ORIGINAL TOS of HP. That is my point.
  
  If rules and TOS are set, they need to be across the board. Not cherry-picking to what benefits HPs pockets. There are plenty of people who had relied upon their income from HP which are now being axed. These unethical accounts need to go. period.
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  Jason Menayanposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  Please see this post above:
  http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/74943?p … ost1623777
  
  We don't cherry pick accounts, and apply the rules fairly (maybe a bit too fairly for some). No account is "above the law." (Remember the Hub about my mother's art?)
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  TerryGlposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  I agree with Ryan. Jason why do you let this account stay?
  
  This is clearly in breach of your own TOS. What message are you sending here by letting this account remain and our little old hubs don't fit in with your model whereas this account does.
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  Buy Tools Onlineposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  I really didn't intend to rock the boat with that, or any of my posts, I was being as genuine and honest as possible with my intentions on here (with the understanding that people would know who I was, as a result of a purposely inserted link).
  
  But if somebody is going to resort to using an old account of 30 hubs against me, then it is only fair that I present a case for my defence. And that was it. All it underlines is inconsistency, and I guess that is another problem.
  
  The temptation to use another account to post has been resisted for two months, I still read this forum most days, the temptation finally got too much!!
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  Pearldiverposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  Given that you weren't intending to rock the boat... Can I ask you what you suggest for Felling pesky Trees Then?
  
  Could a 2 Man Pit Saw be used effectively, or would it be best to attack the problem with a Blunt Axe and just not use the wedge?
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  Buy Tools Onlineposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  I'm not sure Pearls, try eHow?
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  Jason Menayanposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  We typically put an account on probation if a large number of its Hubs run afoul of our rules.
  
  We only ban if the person keeps on resubmitting the same Hub over and over again without making necessary changes.
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  Aware1posted 13 years agoin reply to this
  Jason,
  
  Considering the TOS and the fact that hubs are now unpublished for not following the rules, should not all the hubs in the said account be unpublished. From what you are saying here, I am getting the impression that your rules are only implemented when it suits HP...
  
  http://hubpages.com/profile/www.ibuzzup.com
  
  ^^ Should not ALL the above URL hubs be unpublished until they are in line with TOS? And if not, don't you see a gaping hole in your credibility as a platform?? Also why you should expect to lose quality writers??
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  Jason Menayanposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  Please reread my post. Each Hub is moderated individually, even for those accounts under probation. If we unpublished all Hubs for multiple first-time violations, some of the people in this thread itself would no longer have any Hubs published.
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  EmpressFelicityposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  What about "LindaGoffigan" then? She was banned like lightning after this forum conversation:
  
  http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/69957?p … ost1526057
  
  http://hubpages.com/profile/lindagoffigan
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  Marisa Wrightposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  Linda Goffigan published hundreds of articles which were clearly not her own work, since her communications on the forums were not at the same standard of English as her Hubs. At the time I suspected most of her Hubs were spun.
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  EmpressFelicityposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  And how! No "suspected" about it - not for the ones I read anyway. Either they were spun, or they were written by someone with ESL who had been told "write 500 words using "x" keyword as often as you can".
  
  But the point I'm making is that in the forum thread I referred to, Maddie basically said "thanks for pointing out this person's existence" in response to my suggestion that someone at HP go through Lindagoffigan's hubs with a view to unpublishing the substandard ones.
  
  Which suggests to me that Lindagoffigan wasn't continually resubmitting the same unpublished hubs over and over for republication, otherwise it would have been a case of "oh her, yes we're looking into that" rather than "thanks for telling us about this person". This rather contradicts what Jason said.
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  EmpressFelicityposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  Spot on.
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thisisoliposted 13 years ago
Not all the changes currently being enforced are rules set by google.
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  Jason Menayanposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  Almost none of them are, well, specifically, at least.
  
  Google is saying is general terms "we want good-quality articles, and bad-quality articles will affect traffic to your entire domain." So we are taking down poor-quality Hubs, and encouraging their authors to bring them up in quality so we can have them published on the site.
  
  BTW, Google published this on Friday, which I thought was interesting:
  http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot. … ality.html
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  lrohnerposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  The problem is, unless Google just hired a trillion people to manually look at web pages, there is no way for them to accurately separate "good" from "bad" according to their definition. That's why the SERPs are so messed up right now.
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  Jason Menayanposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  Yes, that's true. That's probably why they've signaled that if you have "too much" poor-quality content - the types of which they enumerate in that blog post - then it affects your entire domain. The good gets lumped in with the bad.
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  DzyMsLizzyposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  And THAT, in a nutshell, is what's wrong with our entire society!!
  
  In any event, who are these "high quality" gods? What one reader enjoys, another may scoff at. People are not all the same, ergo, the things they enjoy reading, or find worthwhile are not the same.
  
  I am reminded of the old adage, "One man's drink is another man's poison." Talk about content farming! Mashing everyone's hubs into a stylistic sameness will benefit no one over the long term.
  
  Taken to its logical extension, if HP follows this trend, bowing and kowtowing to Google, they will end up just like the 'content farm,' "Demand Studios," which dictates every single aspect of the article from insisting on "AP style," to voice, to tone, to extremely stringent spelling and grammar rules (and then make errors of their own along those very lines!), to format to number of words, and insistence on references which can be 'verified' by copy editors...because every article is moderated prior to publication,, and impossibly long lists of prohibited reference sites.
  I haven't written for them in a while because it just got too exasperating. Is this where Hub Pages wants to end up? I hope not, because up to now, I've enjoyed writing here, even if I'm not making squat with AdSense.
  
  So, to Google, I say, "unladylike comment; drunken sailor language!"
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  lrohnerposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  Jason - Could you please explain to us how you think Google is measuring those metrics they posted? I'm coming up blank. Again....unless they've hired a trillion people to do manual reviews....
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  Pearldiverposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  Aren't Google providing that specific opportunity via the dialog that has been 'flowing' to date with HP?
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  Marisa Wrightposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  That's why some of us are questioning the moderators' priorities.
  
  Wouldn't it make more sense to put low-scoring Hubs and Hubbers first in the queue?
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  Jason Menayanposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  Wouldn't that be applying the rules selectively?
  
  The queue works chronologically.
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  Marisa Wrightposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  Could you clarify what you mean by chronologically?
  
  Are you saying the moderators are moderating whatever gets caught by flagging, in the order they are flagged?
  
  If so, that's the dumbest thing I have heard yet. It xplains why Hubbers are questioning the moderators' priorities - they have none.
  
  If you're trying to get rid of spam, then surely you should have at least one moderator assigned to do simple searches to catch the obvious spammers (like the "login" search suggested earlier).
  
  And wouldn't it make more sense to moderate for the larger issues first and leave the others for later, if you ever catch up?
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thisisoliposted 13 years ago
TiF was initially created as a site to support hubbers too. Removing the current issues from the table, the actual Hubpages creation tool is still a great way to build a fantastic page layout. Something that unfortunately a Wordpress based site is limited on.
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  DzyMsLizzyposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  I looked at Wordpress--it seems to require a bit more 'tech-savvy' person than I to publish there, so I stuck to Blogger for my blogs...
  ;-)
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  thisisoliposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  You can set up a basic wordpress install quite easily, modifying it can soon turn technical though!
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  DzyMsLizzyposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  Exactly! ;-)
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WryLiltposted 13 years ago
Jason,

Poking holes in hubbers based on semantics is like trying to blacken a witness' character in a court case. You're merely trying to make what they say against you appear biased or non-factual.

Well unfortunately, there are dozens of hubbers saying the same thing. So instead of trying to blacken their name (or pick on tiny inconsequential parts of their arguments), why don't the staff get together and do something that will take you a lot less time and will be less like trying to plug all the leaks in a dam wall.

Give us some answers. Be honest with us. We just want to know why you're doing things, instead of feeling like we're being manhandled.

Just try and do it before the only members you're left with are newbies and spammers.
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  Jason Menayanposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  I think we've been fairly clear about why we've been making the policy changes that we've made. We want to minimize what we (and Google) consider low-quality content, so that a site-wide penalty on our content can be lifted, and truly deserving Hubs get the traffic they should (and there are a lot of them).
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  WryLiltposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  I'm sure that many people will be less cynical of Hubpages transparency and motivations when they feel they are no longer being treated with double standards.
  
  As mentioned above: http://hubpages.com/profile/www.ibuzzup.com (And it's not an exception, there are many more like it.)
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  Jason Menayanposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  There are Hubbers who have spun articles - something I hope most of us can agree is an egregious offense - whose accounts are still active, and Hubs published. They are on "probation" (they can't publish without a moderator's review). That's the case for the ibuzzup account, as well.
  
  You may not agree with our process, but we certainly do not maintain double standards.
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  Michael Willisposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  Would these titles not fall under Deceptive Title? (The link in above post) You would think you are going to www..parade.com, www..cingular.com, etc.
  
  --oops, had to add the extra dot to take away the live link! lol
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  Jason Menayanposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  Yes, some are. If the title misleads you to the content of the Hub, then it's deceptive.
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  TerryGlposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  Well the obvious question is - why are they still published?
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  Jason Menayanposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  Because those that are still in violation have not been reviewed yet by a moderator.
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  Buy Tools Onlineposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  Why therefore were the 20-30 hubs in the account 'Famous Websites', which you cited as an example of poor quality content, removed immediately without that account being placed on probation?
  
  Anyway, that is me done, enough from me. I guess that you need to wait until a moderator can remove these accounts privileges. I may as well be frank, doing so would be best for all concerned, although I hope that I have remained civil enough during my brief foray or final rendezvous in the forum.
  
  Cheerio, everybody
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  Jason Menayanposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  That's because all of the Hubs were deceptive in the exact same way.
  
  For accounts that are "mixed", they're put on probation until a moderator can sift those that violate our rules from those that don't.
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  WryLiltposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  If that account has been flagged for quite some time, why is it taking so long to get to - it's obviously full of hubs that are against ToS and yet hubbers who have one or two violating hubs get moderated quick smart.
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  Jason Menayanposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  I answered that here:
  http://hubpages.com/forum/post/1623661
  
  The account has some Hubs that are in violation, some that are not, so we can not unpublish everything in one fell swoop. We respond to flags and moderate accordingly, and put the account under probation so that no new Hubs are approved without our approval first.
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  WryLiltposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  So where do "entire accounts" go in the queue? Will they be moderated faster if each hub is separately flagged?
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  Jason Menayanposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  Honestly, I don't know. That's a moderation process question, and I haven't been moderating substantially since 2007.
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  Mutiny92posted 13 years agoin reply to this
  Wrylilt - I flagged those accts quite a while ago but they are still operating. I flagged a few of their hubs and they were taken down after a while. It does seem to be an inefficient process for the few accounts with a massive number of these hubs.
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  lrohnerposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  Jason -- Again, can you tell us exactly how you and/or the HP team think Google identifies "low-quality content" in the SERPs? From what I read, they cannot do it without manual intervention. Would love to hear your thoughts.
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  Jason Menayanposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  Well, I don't know. I suppose they could check for certain things algorithmically (like duplicate content, for example) or they could take a certain statistically-significant sample at random and have a human evaluator look at it.
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  Michael Willisposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  I have read they say they did not target sites, but I really find that hard to swallow! When low-quality is still ranked high in instances, then the algorithm is not doing its job properly.
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  lrohnerposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  So...the explanation of "I think we've been fairly clear about why..." was answered with "Honestly, I don't know." Huh, sums it up for me at least.
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  Jason Menayanposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  The first question was asking why we instituted a policy. I can answer that definitively.
  
  The second (yours) is asking how Google does something. For that, I can only surmise a guess.
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TerryGlposted 13 years ago
You don't have to be Einstein to work out that if your hubs bring little to no traffic then your gone. Those hubs, as in this case with over 1 million views and even up to 10 million, can stay.

It seems to be the case that if you make us money then you can stay, if you don't then you can go.
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  Jason Menayanposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  So if an account has been moderated many times before, for deceptive titles, or, say, article spinning, then all of their Hubs should be unpublished immediately?
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Aware1posted 13 years ago
Well, here is a list of profiles that have been reported on many occasions which may need some attention to moderation:

http://hubpages.com/profile/trading
http://hubpages.com/profile/writers
http://hubpages.com/hub/ww_hotmail_com
http://hubpages.com/profile/InfoFinder
http://hubpages.com/profile/TheWriteStuff
http://hubpages.com/profile/jojo1000

Hopefully the crap can be gone so that the quality can breathe again.
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Mutiny92posted 13 years ago
Adding the word "review" to the title seems to be the workaround.

Case in point: http://hubpages.com/hub/www_citicards_com

Regardless of how good or bad this hub is (it really isn't important), if you read the comments, the visitors to the hub are confused. One has left an address and others include:

where is your freakin website? what a bunch of crooks. i need to make a payment.

Joe 3 years ago: I wish someone would do away with google so we could go to the address we enter rather than all of these sales gimics

These comments seem to align VERY closely to the quality questions that were asked here: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot. … ality.html

You can draw your own conclusion whether these hubs align with the questions posed - and whether a more proactive approach to dealing with them is warranted.
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  Jason Menayanposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  They probably changed the title recently. It was probably something deceptive before.
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  Mutiny92posted 13 years agoin reply to this
  I believe you are right that they changed it recently, but I don't think adding the word "review" makes it not deceptive. It just further blurs the line.
  
  In another hub (which I flagged) a reader thought he was at the website's login page and left his account name, password and personal information in the comments. I would think that poses liability issues at some point - especially if HP has acknowledged that these hubs may be "deceptive."
  
  (of course, I am NOT a lawyer!)
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  Mutiny92posted 13 years agoin reply to this
  there really is a lot of personal information left as these hubs are obviously confusing readers. That should be enough of the proof.
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darksideposted 13 years ago
And a few hours ago the last two have been cleared.

What we need is those notifications split up. Not lump four possible infringements in the one email when the system knows exactly which one it is. Especially when the actual problem (which I honestly don't see as deserving of the punishment of being unpublished) is hard to find.

I may have found it far sooner if I wasn't having to split my attention to four different areas (I could have published another hub for the amount of time I spent going over those hubs).
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  Marisa Wrightposted 13 years agoin reply to this
  Good point.
  reply report

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