How is So Much Copied Content Still Being Published Here?

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   CMHypnoposted 13 years ago

   I flagged two new hubs that I saw in my feed this morning for copied content, and each of them had been published in at least four other locations?
   
   Surely, there is a better automatic filter that HP could use to help stop such blatant spamming of the internet - it's not even as if these article were particularly interesting or well written, and could probably have flagged them for being spun as well.

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      Jason Menayanposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      We are working on it. In fact, one of our engineers, Mark, is almost exclusively working on it.
      
      It's far more difficult than you might imagine to instantaneously detect if something already exists on the net. But we think it's important so we are working on it.

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         CMHypnoposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Thanks for the reply Jason, and I'm glad that you are working on it. Nothing ever is as easy as it might seem to us non-techies, but I think that it would be a great help to us all at HP to stop some of this dross getting on the site. How blatant some people can be with their copying and spamming just never fails to amaze me!

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            Jason Menayanposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            Yes, it's absolutely in our interests, too. I'm not a techie, either, but I can grasp the basics that Paul and Mark have shared and can understand the difficulty.
            
            As a matter of historical perspective (I've been here since September 2006, almost 5 years), and, really, this is not spin, HubPages has never been as clean of copied and spun content as it is now. We're an open platform, and we've been battling crap since the beginning. Now more people notice the crap because they're Hub hopping, but spammers have always been here. I think we do a much better job than most other open publishing platforms, including (ahem!) some of Google's own platforms...
            
            Not that we're content with the status quo, which is why we continue our efforts to battle it.
            
            Keep in mind that many other sites that have absolutely no duplicate content, like eHow and Wisegeek, were still smacked down by Panda, so getting rid of all duplicate content is not the only thing we have to overcome.

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               CMHypnoposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               Thanks Jason, it's just very easy to get grumpy when you keep finding the stuff and flagging it!
               
               Any efforts to lower the dross level very much appreciated, and I hope that you all have a great weekend.

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         Lissieposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Yes I understand that it is quite difficult - but the minimum word count isn't difficult at all as the text capsule already has a word count in it and you include the overall word count in the stats

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            wildernessposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            No, that isn't difficult and it makes me wonder if HP simply doesn't want the minimum count publicized as they would have large numbers at or just over the minimum from spammers.
            
            At the same time, though, poetry could be a problem - many poems are quite short.  Photo hubs, with lots of photos but little text, could cause a problem as well and there are likely others.  HP is good enough to allow these kinds of hubs to be published, but a minimum word count filter could be hard to put into place - I just don't know enough about how the whole system is designed to know the answer there.

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               Jason Menayanposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               We do have a minimum word count filter, excepting those two categories you've mention: poetry and gallery (video/photo) Hubs.
               
               If you see a Hub that's substantially empty but is in another category, please flag it with a note that it should have never been published. It might be a bug.
               
               Thanks!

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                  wildernessposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                  Thanks, Jason - I figured those two categories would be exempt (I just didn't know it was called gallery).

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   recommend1posted 13 years ago

   There appears to be a practice of allowing anything in for some reason, maybe the number of 'members' is more important to revenue or something ?  I do not go looking and flagging as I see so much trash that could easily be stopped with simple automatic filters - either it is policy to let it in or there is not enough ability in the control box - either way I object to sorting rubbish.

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      CMHypnoposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      But it just seems mad to me that diligent hubbers who are trying hard are constantly getting their hubs unpublished for minor infringements, when this kind of dross can get published and appears to stay published until we flag it.
      
      And they wonder why hubbers are getting fed up?

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         recommend1posted 13 years agoin reply to this

         I have given up complaining - nobody is listening and I have come to the conclusion that they are up to stuff we must not know or we would all jump ship. I am not putting any more stuff on here until I can see where they are going.

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            CMHypnoposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            Yes, it seems to have gone deathly quiet on the Amazon front - are we all going to wake up one morning to find all Amazon capsules and links removed.
            
            Well at least I can still ban you and am getting to finish my novel!

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               recommend1posted 13 years agoin reply to this

               Seems everyone is at that !!   I am taking my friends 'just finished' book on holiday with me so that I can comment etc  before he goes into final draft - and now my son tells me he is just starting his !  now you !

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         Will Apseposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         A lot of hubbers never read the rules but never infringe. They just have a clear idea of what is trashy and what is not.
         
         As for for being unhappy- the mood seems pretty good round here for all those who stayed.

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            recommend1posted 13 years agoin reply to this

            Well there are only three of us and I am happy enough for everyone

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            CMHypnoposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            Is the mood good?
            
            There are a lot of good hubbers who have left or who are not publishing any more because they got fed up of arbitrary rule changes and having their hubs unpublished with little warning, but still the copied, spun dross is allowed to roll on here?
            
            I think that a lot of hubbers have also given up voicing their concerns because they are fed up of being given short shrift by the HP staff, so that's why you don't hear much dissension on the forums these days.

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               Will Apseposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               The 'good' writers who left will be back if they start making money as a result of the change to sub-domains.
               
               Those people silly enough to have moved all their content won't benefit, of course.
               
               Neither will those people who produced poor quality stuff en masse and relied on the authority of the site to make their money.
               
               Hubpages architecture obviously still offers pretty good support but you can't get away with really poor quality articles anymore.

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         Wesman Todd Shawposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Well - supposedly the subdomain switch (you should certainly do that right away if you haven't already) allows your own work to stand on it's own, and not be judged better or worse for being associated with my work, or anyone else's.
         
         Still, I flag bs when I see it.

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   Mark Ewbieposted 13 years ago

   My mood is generally happy.  I really like the community feel of HubPages - the fellow writers, the forums and the way the software works.
   
   But.
   
   I don't think the HP approach since Panda has been presented very well to the contributors, and I especially think that some of those top contributors (the ones who used to make money for the site) have a right to feel aggrieved.
   
   The various changes pre subdomains (and the jury is still out) achieved nothing.  They created a lot of work and animosity.
   
   The views of some top SEO type people were completely ignored, even though they have as much, and in some cases, far more, knowledge than the HP team.
   
   And.
   
   To get back on topic.  In an effort to raise quality on HP I have bleated on and on and on about stopping the crap coming in, and fixing the crap that is already here.  My personal opinion is that HP do not care enough about this.
   
   It may be with subdomains they don't need to either.  Crappy subdomains get slapped.  Good subdomains are OK.
   
   That would be nice.

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      CMHypnoposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      But a site comprising of only good to quality subdomains would be even better!
      
      Keep bleating Mark, your voice needs to be heard!

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      theherbivorehippiposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      I agree...I'm beyond disappointed on how things have been handled. I have no desire to write here anymore with the exception of the occasional article to drive traffic to my sites. I have been fortunate, I did see a great spike in traffic from the subdomains switch but it doesn't change the fact that I'm embarrassed to have my work mixed in on a site that allows such garbage to be published.
      
      The community has been complaining about this for a while. WE have done our part by taking time out of our days to Hub Hop...why? Why flag something that shouldn't be getting published in the first place? Why not enforce stricter guidelines to new authors and make them have to submit their first few articles for review? Other sites do it. Let's unpublish articles by Hubbers who have been here and are established but let all this new BS slip through. It just makes no sense.
      
      And a Facebook Login now....WTF....my Facebook is private...I have no desire to mix my private life of friends and family with Hubpages. I'm just waiting for this to be mandatory, it will be the final straw for me...as if being banned for three days this week wasn't enough.

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         CMHypnoposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Mandatory Facebook and I'm off as well!

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            writeronlineposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            Mandatory Facebook = Kiss of Death, for me.

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               Will Apseposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               I hear that Hubpages are going to force writers to wear special Hubpages uniforms whenever to do any kind of Hubpages related work.
               
               You will also be obliged to have a web cam on at all times.
               
               If one of the mods catches you writing here without your uniform, you will be history.
               
               If you fail to salute the mod when challenged, you will be history.
               
               If you are silly enough to believe all the wild speculations in these Forums you deserve to be history...

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                  writeronlineposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                  Thanks for the patronising comment, Will Apse. I only drop by the forums very infrequently. I've just been reminded why.

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                     Will Apseposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                     Hey! I'm the one who gets all the abuse round here. Do I complain? Well, sometimes...
                     
                     But I try to keep a stiff upper lip.

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         R.S. Hutchinsonposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         WHy were you banned?

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            theherbivorehippiposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            Well considering Hubpages didn't send me an email telling me why as they claim they always do (second time...no email) I can only assume it was because I called someone a gnat. Yes...a silly little bug. I agree..I probably deserved to be banned...no name calling permitted but the person was clearly harassing me and had made very disrespectful comments to me so I said they were like a little gnat that wouldn't go away. Didn't realize that was so severe but whatever. I know the rules although I certainly have seen much worse on here. Had I known I'd get banned I surely would have came up with something better than a bug.

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               CMHypnoposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               Thing is, if you knew that you were going to be banned anyway you could have really let rip!

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                  theherbivorehippiposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                  I know I know....I should have thought my response through better. Either leave out the tiny insult or go all out. I'll try to do better next time.

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      relacheposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Not according to my traffic and earnings...

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         BaliMermaidposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         I agree with Relache.  I am more than pleased with the results of the switch to sub-domains.  Everything about how our hubs are measured and the revenue we can make from our quality content efforts is up.  My wife's account is not up as much, and her sub-domain tested results were unbelievable. When it switched back over to the user name most of that gain was lost, except revenue which has surprisingly grown, so she's not unhappy and working to find out how and what she needs to do to get more traffic.
         
         Bottom line - Thank you Hubpages staff for your efforts.

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   Lissieposted 13 years ago

   Well they don't even seem to be able to enforce a minimum word limit on hubs -never mind something "hard" like running stuff thru a dup content checker - after all the Team is all busy doing important stuff - like contests!

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      CMHypnoposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Or adding Facebook logins - fiddling while Rome burns?

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      theherbivorehippiposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Maybe if we have a few more contests we won't look like a content farm....just saying. How many people do we need blowing out articles in a hurry on the same topic...can't imagine why Hubpages was compared to eHow for a while there. Is it really any better in that department? Same sh*t, different layout.

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   Maren Morgan M-Tposted 13 years ago

   Lissie -- luv you, gal, and I second your comment.

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   www.lookseenowposted 13 years ago

   Please define “copied content.”  Is it copied from another’s writing, or is it copied from his/her memory?  Each writer has memory, and database.  I save all of my files, and if I quote excerpts from my own stuff, is that copied?  If I am the author, I own it, and I’m free to quote from it.  Writers do it all the time, it’s called slanting to make it fit for another audience or market.

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      CMHypnoposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Content on HubPages has to be original, so you cannot write an article and then post it on ten different sites and HP.
      
      Quotes can be used, but they cannot make up more than a certain percentage of the text, whether you are quoting yourself or another source.

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         www.lookseenowposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         There's a difference between posts, and comment.  A post is published content, but what's a comment?  Sometimes it gets out of hand, and I shy away from it, unless someone has demanded of me a reason for the faith I write about, but I hope to do so with a mild manner together with references, and  deep respect.

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      wildernessposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      It's actually pretty straight forward.  If you block a section of text, copy it to the clipboard on your computer and paste it into a hub it is copied.  If you can accomplish the same thing from memory it is copied. 
      
      If the source (where you copied it from) is published on the net it will eventually be found by the filters and the hub unpublished.
      
      Nowhere in this explanation is there reference as to who wrote the source text; it doesn't matter to HubPages.  While it is legal to copy your own words it is not something that HubPages wants on its servers.

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   daryl2007posted 13 years ago

   I believe that HP is using the best tool for filtering copied content already.  When you see something, which you think is copied it must be the  taught  of the article and not the content.  You see some hubbers are looking for popular content, because popular content drives more readers.  Another thing hubpages is not just about textual content but also videos, images, etc.  People joined hubpages because they want to share their great love to something or whatever that sometimes hard for them to put in words.  What we can do is, comment them some steps on how to write effective hubs not killing their hubs.  Hubpages was established to help people to share their great ideas online.  Let's make this as a good community helping one another not destroying those who are trying to share great ideas in life.

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      CMHypnoposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      This is a helpful community, but for people who are genuinely trying to write original, quality content.
      
      Copied content and spun content is against HP TOS and needs to be flagged and removed - and I don't think that you will find much sympathy for a content copier in the forums, because too many of us have to spend way too much time filing complaints about our own stuff being copied elsewhere.

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   Thrillerposted 13 years ago

   Let's be clear about one fact. Copied content and spam will exist as long as the internet does. You can only try to minimize it but can't eliminate it completely. No one has a magic wand including Hubpages.

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      CMHypnoposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      I agree that you can probably never get rid of it all, but the efforts to minimise it - from both HP staff and hubbers - can only pay dividends for us all.

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   Deborah Sextonposted 13 years ago

   I don't understand the motives of people who cause others trouble.
   
   Debating on the forums is OK, but people should let people write what they want.
   If Hubpages allows it who are we to put down the writers?

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