Why am I seeing what looks like robo-writing?

1. 65

   GracieLakeposted 12 years ago

   I am pretty new to HP, and I was doing some Hub Hopping to get a feel for what people are writing about, when I saw that many of the hubs seemed to be written by some kind of robo program, or by somebody who took content, translated it to a foreign language, and then translated it back again to English for some pretty wacky results. Is this the kind of thing we should flag?

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      kschangposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      You've found content generated by a "rewriter". They basically steal content, fed it through a program so it's no longer recognizable by auto scan to be duplicate, and post that, hoping to still capture keyword content.
      
      PLEASE flag them. We can't abide that sort of junk content on Hubpages. It may work on some of those content farms, but HP prune junk content aggressively.

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         IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Kschang, how come you are here 15 months and have not created an avatar?

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            kschangposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            I rather enjoy my anonymous look.

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               IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

               Fair enough!

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            Richieb799posted 12 years agoin reply to this

            That anonymous figure looks like a shady person with that hat lol
            
            Most of the spun content is posted by submitting tools called Scrapebox, Ubot etc

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      Wesman Todd Shawposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Flag it every time you see it.  The stealth machine is a real deal, and your translation theory probably is correct too for some.  You'll always know a spam profile by the way it will have so many hubs and so few followers.

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      R.S. Hutchinsonposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      1.    Right?!! I'm not sure if we are reading the same hubs or not, but I get disgusted at seeing the exact SAME content over and over and over again!! Some 20 year old kid explaining quantum physics and bio-nuclear space engineering on Mars using mononuclear atmospheric pressures chalk full of theoretical formulas that would even baffle Hawking.... I'm like..."riiiiiiighht.. this kid just happens to be a genius that is on Hubpages trying to earn some extra cash". And then there is the ever so ever mudane regurgitated hubs and articles. Blegh! I wrote an article on First Date ideas and did a little research before I did on HP and on Google etc and saw the exact same article (with words changed around) and the exact same "lame" first date ideas over and over and over and over...  As a writer (that has his own ideas) I get really frustrated at bad writing, plagiarism, and regurgitated content.. GRRRR I say! - Ok I'm done venting.

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      wheelinalloverposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      I became involved with a challenge posted by a hubber in the forum. From this challenge came a hub which was written and published within 33 minutes. The hub score was one of the lowest to date however it has been read more in 24 hours than anything previously published and even had search engine hits. It was not spun content because it all came from personal experience.
      
      My take on this would be you can usually tell when something is spun because there won't be much that can be considered from personal experience. Usually the spinner will put sentences together in such a way that they don't quite fit.
      
      In my case English is not my first language, it is my third. Due to memory loss and being retrained in English it is now my only language. My early retraining was done by my mother who spoke and read three languages and could and did translate them including many dialects of South American Spanish for a living.
      Her Spanish and Cherokee were actually better than her English. 
      
      My father who took over for her spoke two languages. He was a graduate of an American college where English was the language used for teaching. In spite of this he still spoke and wrote what other might call incorrect.
      
      When my memory returned after nine years the languages were no longer useable for me. They are however still inside my brain and mess with thinking in English. I have noticed many of the sentences I write seem somehow backwards and struggle constantly to make them correct. I hope I make up for this by using examples from both what I call pre-memory and what was learned in the nine years I had no pre-memory.

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   2uesdayposted 12 years ago

   Yes, flag it and then a the moderator will decide if it needs to be removed.
   
   Well done for spotting it and welcome.

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      GracieLakeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks everybody for the information! I always want to be careful flagging stuff, but this helps explain a lot.

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         duffsmomposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         I like to be careful flagging stuff as well.  I was thinking that some of those hubs are just people who have very poor English skills-although their English is much better than my command of their language. :-)

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3. 69

   Angie Jardineposted 12 years ago

   With the best will in the world to those whose first language is not English, we really do need to flag badly written stuff. Sometimes it may be from a genuine writer who does struggle with the strangeness of the English Language but often it is regurgitated spam.
   
   And if Google suspects that HP is full of low grade, duplicated content it will quite simply penalise it and that's bad news for the rest of the folks who work hard at writing quality material.
   
   So it is very important to hop and flag anything suspicious so that the hardworking HP staff can take a closer look.

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      CMHypnoposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Trouble is there is tons and tons of old spun/low quality/copied hubs still sitting there. I don't hub hop, I wade through hubs of older hubbers with low authors scores and have to flag most of them.
      
      I don't know why HP don't just delete the accounts of all hubbers who have a very low author score (say under 25 and obviously giving them enough time for their score to go up), as trust me hundreds of very poor hubs would be instantly got rid of.

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   Greg Sageposted 12 years ago

   There are very few things I would flag, but that's near the top of the list.  It only serves to drag HP down, and is likely stolen to begin with.
   
   I would never flag someone for their viewpoints (unless they were advocating violence or something of that nature).  I would personally never flag them for general grammar issues or spelling... but if it looks like it wasn't written by a human, it looks that way for a reason. 
   
   Robo-spun b.s. serves no legitimate purpose, and is at best a detriment to the HP community.

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5. 86

   Cardisaposted 12 years ago

   I would not know what to look for in a hub of this nature but I agree to flag such a hub when you come across it.
   
   By the way how do you recognize a 'bot' hub if you see it?

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      Uninvited Writerposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Stuff like this:
      
      http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/77640#post1679988

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         danfresnourbanposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Thanks for providing a specific example, I have a pretty good idea of what to look for, awkward prose, few or zero friends, and low author score, but a specific example is great.
         
         I believe it is critical that all of the genuine writers act like moderators and flag the spam/spun articles. With Google's changes, hp will be wither and die if we do not serve up top quality content. Which, hp has, but the spam will hurt all of us.

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         Lisa HWposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         That example is a good one, but not quite as "prize-winning" (or mind-boggling) as Rochelle Frank's find that had "apple pie bubble water"  and some weird thing about dogs ducks, appendages and baptism all mixed in.   

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            IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            That thread was brilliant!! I hadn't laughed so much for a long time

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   Huntgoddessposted 12 years ago

   Yes, we should definitely flag that. It's not original content. It will tend to drag down Hubpages' reputation. It also isn't fair to all the hard-working Hubbers who do spend time and effort on their articles. It's just tacky.
   
   I've seen garbage like that, too. Some things looked like they were perhaps a pamphlet that had been scanned. A couple were obviously copied or scanned from an encyclopedia or travelogue article. As long as you're not flagging stuff to get some personal revenge or something like that, you should flag it.
   
   Be sure to say your reason for flagging, in the checkboxes, or if it's "other" just click "other" and type a few sentences in the field that comes up. As long as you are really doing it in good faith and with what you believe is reasonable cause. If the Hp folks disagree, that's up to them. You won't get penalized, as far as I know, just for being "incorrect".
   
   At least, you've done your part. I mean, sometimes, when I totally disagree with the content anyway, I have to stop and scrutinize my own motives.
   
   "Hmm, what really IS my reason for doing this?"
   
   I probably end up overcompensating by NOT flagging some of the folks I disagree with or dislike the most. (I shouldn't do that, either, though, really.)

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7. 86

   IzzyMposted 12 years ago

   I read your hub. I didn't comment because I'm not good at leaving comments, but I take my hat off to your, sir! I saw just a little flash of another life, and think you should consider writing a book about your life's experience in general. I think it would be fascinating

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