What are staff qualifications for moderation and editing?

1. 77

   sunforgedposted 13 years ago

   When one writes at "real" or traditional publications they work with editors.
   
   The qualifications to be an editor are pretty straightforward.
   
   The last 3 months of experience with moderation staff really begs the question, who are these people?
   
   Interns, Undergrads - High School Drop Outs? .. MBA's having a mid life crisis?
   
   Whoever they are, their combined grasp on ontology and inter-relationships is naive and laughable for this industry.
   
   If they are relying on some poorly designed semantic relationship standard they should at least make it public
   
   At least when I get obnoxious faceless emails I could get the satisfactions of thinking,
   
   "hmm, must be that mod with the pimples."
   
   
   I know my personal relationships are not that complex, my target readers would understand and appreciate. Yet, they seem to go right over the heads of whatever faceless "team" member moderates my work.
   
   It takes a monster knowledge base to recognize relationships between concepts in every conceivable topic. The mods are all Double PHD's I presume?
   
   
   Nor to mention the hypocrisy and foolishness of attempting to make such edits on a platform that uses adsense and sticks big blinking Bing ads on every hub (unrelated much?)
   
   
   I guess, I did mention it.
   
   
   The latest treasure I received back on a hub on PayPal and eBay tools was that I was promoting "guns, tobacco or gambling"
   
   There did happen to be a stun gun listing in the dynamic feed generated by ebay. In a collection of wholesale lots that an ebay seller (former powerseller here, ill make the judge of whats desirable to this market, thank you , mr intern) ... there is also 353 hubs on stun guns and a huge inventory of adsense ads - its not a prohibited topic.
   
   Its been so long, the hub has been deindexed, so I cant link to an example.
   
   So anyway - doesnt it offend your artistic spirit as a writer or your sense of professionalism to have a faceless moderation team with no posted qualifications?

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2. 0

   EmpressFelicityposted 13 years ago

   So let me get this straight... your hub wasn't actually about guns, it just happened to have a random eBay feed that just happened to be showing a stun gun at the time the moderator came across it?

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3. 77

   sunforgedposted 13 years ago

   Yes! but this is a saga.
   
   That (amazing?) detail just reawakened my scorn.
   
   If the feed had pulled up a "how to gamble" ebook, I would accept that I was responsible for promoting a prohibited topic. That would be my fault for poor keyword use in my product selection.
   
   In this case, someone decided a "stun gun" was against adsense TOS.
   
   But, thats kind of trivial. If I was bored enough to go through my post history, I could re-post half a dozen "oops, that shouldnt have happened" responses from staff in regards to moderation mistakes.
   
   
   So, now Im at the point of genuinely wondering .. who is making these mistakes and poor judgement and why am I (and anyone who respects their work) constantly on the losing end of these decisions.
   
   Who are these moderators and what are their qualifications?
   
   If they can question my relatedness - I would love to see their studies on taxonomy and ontology or personal conversion levels in multi niche campaigns
   
   hmmm .. I guess Im saying that I think Hubpages has hired a bunch of interns whose qualifications dont extend past categorizing beers from light to dark ..and only domestic at that.
   
   even thats not direct enough,, how about dealing with Hubpages is like being in a Mike Judge movie.
   
   hell, how about a link to the original job listing.
   
   
   Now Hiring
   
   Can you sit for long hours?
   
   Are you looking for a career in the exciting world of faceless moderation?
   
   Be a part of the newest social network on the web ;p that is making great headlines in the industry.
   
   Must like John Lennon and have Glaucoma
   
   something like that I "imagine"
   
   ________________
   
   
   anyways, get the gardening pads and blistex on and get back to su ..h...sharecropping, it will all be alright, its always been alright, We've always been at war with Eastasia
   
   -------------

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      EmpressFelicityposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      
      
      I'd never heard of Mike Judge - had to look him up.  Which of his films would be most analagous to the situation at hand - Office Space or Idiocracy?
      
      Getting back down to earth, I wonder whether the problem really is the moderators or whether it's got more to do with the nature of the training/briefing they've had (or not had, as the case may be).

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4. 65

   theherbivorehippiposted 13 years ago

   lol...I never get tired of reading your posts Sunforged.

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5. 77

   sunforgedposted 13 years ago

   I know moderation is not a fun or easy job. No one is ever going to be happy with you and you cant brag to your friends when they talk about bonuses and great times at work.
   
   I mean .."har har, Youll never guess what happened at work, moderator #629 , couldnt find the windows key ... on the office Powerbook! .. har har"  just doesnt do it.
   
   but how can they even pretend to be making judgements about relatedness of products when they run adsense and impression based ads?
   
   A featured thread today is...
   
   "You may see the ad running on Hubs in the family, holidays, home, pets, and food categories."
   
   the ad = Mrs. Meyers cleaning products
   http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/77365#post1674099
   
   so Mrs Meyers cleaning products is related to every conceivable subtopic in "family, holidays, home, pets, and food categories"
   
   but my "wholesale lots" are not of interest to "paypal" and ebay sellers.
   
   In my arrogance, i would say that as a former Powerseller, ill tell you what we like, and you take notes ...mmmkay

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6. 74

   aguasilverposted 13 years ago

   Note the absence of replies from any moderator.
   
   I also had one hub pulled because it contained an Amazon ad for a colloidal silver generator, go figure!
   
   Good that Sunforged put this up, I assume we ALL acknowledge that he is an expert in his field.

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7. 61

   SunSevenposted 13 years ago

   SF, what makes you think that those were moderated by humans?
   I happen to think that they wrote programs to do that, well you cant blame me for thinking this way, 'cause HP was always transparent about their staff and such, but they never ever introduced their moderators to us.
   
   Either they are robots, or outsourced (can these be robots too?) without verifying credentials of those who made it to the payroll.
   
   Made me think about Edison.
   
   Best Regards

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      Multimanposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      In either case the downward HP spiral will continue.

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8. 79

   psycheskinnerposted 13 years ago

   I am sure the grapes were bitter, anyway.
   
   Honestly, ranty insults against the mods are not going to help you situation--especially when you clearly were doing at least some things you weren't meant to..

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   1. 77

      sunforgedposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      I think you are confused about the nature of this thread. Im glad you seem to know what we are "meant" to be doing. Please tell more about what I "clearly" was doing that I was not meant to. Or the relevance to my request?
      
      Do you have a response relevant to the "rantiness".
      
      
      
      For the Record with around 400 published hubs - outside of changes in allowed links and the amazon settings - I have had almost no contact with moderation staff which hasnt proven to be an error on their end.
      
      When the mistakes pile up I ask questions as to why my time is so often interfered with ..
      
      
      I think you can refer  yourself to this line to get a feel for my reaction towards your uninformed opinion
      
      "anyways, get the gardening pads and blistex on and get back to su ..h...sharecropping, it will all be alright, its always been alright, We've always been at war with Eastasia"
      
      Where are these grapes you mention? In addition my post was free of insults. I guess as a psychologist you may look down on interns, undergrads, drop-outs or even MBA's - I dont, just curious why moderation staff is faceless and lacking in posted qualifications.
      
      I do appreciate intelligent responses. I look forward to seeing one from you one day.

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         Multimanposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Very controlled response for the nasty response she gave you, is it possible she is a moderator?  and this hit to close to home?

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         1. 79

            psycheskinnerposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            She isn't. And yeah, clearly "ranty" was waaaaay off base.

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9. 71

   Cagsilposted 13 years ago

   What are staff qualifications for moderation and editing?
   
   What makes you think they were qualified to be anything at all, much less, moderators.

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10. 69

    Camping with Kidsposted 13 years ago

    @Sunforged - a lot of valid points - maybe,
    
    but I agree the most irksome is the blast of unrelated ads. After the effort to write content directed at niche keywords, it's frustrating to see huge ads for totally unrelated stuff. Not much chance for ad clicks there. What a waste of time and space.
    
    It's almost like the stuff web servers put on parked domains
    
    Gus
    (ps. new ID, not a new hubber)

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