Five quality hubs needed, or QAP failures will be unpublished

1. 72

   relacheposted 11 years ago

   http://blog.hubpages.com/2013/04/five-f … b-barrier/
   
   The new blog post that just went up today really caught my eye.  The crux: "Until you have published five simultaneously-Featured Hubs, new Hubs that do not pass the Quality Assessment Process (QAP) will be unpublished rather simply being not Featured."
   
   I think this is potentially the more-effective reduction in low-quality some of us have been waiting for.  And as someone who remembers the days when you could view exactly how many Hubs were on the site, I can't help but wonder just how much content this is going to impact...

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   1. 46

      Ericdierkerposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      That looks right to me. I just published a too short, too lacking in keywords, too few widgets hub. I have over 100 simultaneously featured hubs. So I earned a right to publish a commercially unsatisfactory hub or two that make me and my followers happy.
      Did I get that right?

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      1. 86

         Simone Smithposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Yep!

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      2. 72

         relacheposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Actually, yes.  That Hub will be "live" but will still be hidden from search engines.

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   2. 86

      Simone Smithposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I'm really glad to hear you're pleased with the policy, relache!
      
      Here's hoping it makes the significant impact we hope it will.
      
      Here's also hoping that people enjoy their new Featured Hubs Accolade... people really deserve to be rewarded for the amazing Hubs they create.

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      1. 85

         TIMETRAVELER2posted 11 years agoin reply to this

         I support this idea, but feel, as I have noted in the past, that people should be informed specifically about why a hub is not being featured.  My hubs generally get featured quickly, but once in awhile they do not and then this becomes a guessing game that is very frustrating.  I usually get it worked out, but sometimes I must rewrite four or more times to accomplish featured status.  You told me there is no way to do this, but surely the staff can find some way to let people know what they are doing wrong, especially if the error is something subtle.

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   3. 69

      To Start Againposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I wondered not long ago just how much content was on here these days. I do remember when we could see that information. It just makes me wonder....
      I like this, though. It seems like it may get the low quality one's under control and out of here much quicker. Of course, the forums might be flooded for days with hubbers wondering why their hubs are getting unpublished 

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   4. 60

      Sinea Piesposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I agree with you, relache. This is a great idea and will definitely help those of us who strive for excellence in our writing.

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   5. 61

      gabgirl12posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      There is an Error 404 on the QAP.

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   6. 61

      gabgirl12posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Still an error 404 on the QAP for me. So far I have 3 featured hubs, so I think The others have not been 'unpublished' yet so I'm guessing they passed the QAP? I also notice if I revamp a hub that had been published it goes through the QAP process again. Heh, this is like Google Panda, but its HubPages. If only the pay was worth it. 2 years and I have never had a pay out.

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2. 94

   wildernessposted 11 years ago

   It gets a resounding "Yes!" from me.  There have been some growing pains with the HP QAP, some rather severe, but overall I fully support the efforts to clean up the site.  This looks like a great step in the right direction.

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   1. 86

      Simone Smithposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      We appreciate the vote of confidence, wilderness! We're still working out kinks and shall continue to do so for quite some time, but everything we're doing is in an effort to give Hubbers more resources, readership, and revenue.

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      1. 46

         Ericdierkerposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         There is a cool thing going on here, we do not have a democracy but we have a benevolent benefactor Corporate King. Because we want the same thing. Governance in it's proper form is the governed and the governors searching and striving for the same thing. You may want money and I might want fame or a voice. To be meaningful and stable they must be the same desire.

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3. 83

   Marcy Goodfleischposted 11 years ago

   +1 for this new 'rule' - great idea for ensuring we have a higher ratio of quality content here.

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4. 88

   SimeyCposted 11 years ago

   I think this could be refined at some point - a ratio of 80% featured hubs should  also be maintained to ensure publishing of hubs (or something like that) - thus not only will you catch those who are new, but you'll catch those whose quality is slipping. This also ensures that (at least) 80% of all hubs published are quality (featured) hubs.
   
   So the rule would be refined to: 5+ featured hubs and a featured hub to non featured hub ratio greater than 80% will allow hubs to be published if they fail the QAP process.

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5. 54

   janderson99posted 11 years ago

   I suggest going to the next step:
   ALL new Hubs that do not pass QAP will be unpublished rather simply being not Featured
   If they are not good enough why allow them on HP!
   Reserve 'Not Featured" for old hubs that get QAPed for quality or have low traffic = second chance for hubbers to fix. (criteria change)

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   1. 83

      Marcy Goodfleischposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Janderson has a good point - I don't know if there would be some way to do it, but it sure would be nice if all really old hubs that are really low quality were just plain unpublished.  And maybe that's what's happening or something to accounts owned by writers who have been MIA for a few years.  I don't know.
      
      At any rate, I am truly happy to see the steps taken on the site to filter out bad content and encourage good writing.
      
      Regarding the new accolade - I'm assuming it's the one that looks like a bullhorn or something?  I saw it and wasn't sure what it meant - at first I thought it meant you had at least that many hubs with videos (looks a bit like a video camera)  (or something).

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   2. 54

      janderson99posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Why not simply things further by eliminating "published BUT pending". This would mean that hubs remain unpublished while being QAPed. This would eliminate the indexing delays and other problems associated with having ALL hubs getting a NOINDEX tag which is removed after passing QAP. What's the point of publishing while pending anyway, especially as the QAP process is now 24 hours. With the current changes a hub may get published - go into pending phase, and if it fails QAP it gets unpublished - a strange runaround, that probably confuses the Google bot.

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   3. 94

      wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      You wouldn't get any argument from me on that one, either, except for hubs being unfeatured for traffic reasons.
      
      I do support such things as creative writing and poetry, but the biggest problem I see are those written about HP and for hubbers.  They're valuable and a great resource for nubes, but would mostly disappear as they can't get enough traffic to remain featured.  At least those I've written would - guess I can't speak for everyone else.

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      1. 83

         Marcy Goodfleischposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         I am wondering if those articles would remain featured due to the number of views they get? If they're good enough quality, they should at least be published and available internally.  I agree with you, Wilderness, the hubs that give us advice on doing our work here are indeed valuable.
         
         There are some other types of hubs that were fads for a while (perhaps still are) that may not have the elements required to pass QAP.  Hubs that are a tribute to someone's friend here, or that celebrate two years on the site, or the 100th hub someone has written are fun for their social value, but probably pull down the site's ranking in the long run.

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         1. 94

            wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            I don't really see a need for those to be listed in a search engine (featured).  No one outside HP is going to search for how to use capsules or something like that.  They aren't going to google "My 100th hub" or "How to use photos in your hub".  Not even "A tribute to XXX". 
            
            So let those hubs remain unfeatured, where they won't hurt the site but where HP searches will still find them.  They can still be available to those that have a need for them, or just want to read them for enjoyment.  No need to be featured.

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            1. 90

               Rochelle Frankposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               This makes sense.  Hubbers appreciate the articles related to HP, but for those trying to earn, most of us know that we have to appeal to a broad audience outside of HubPages.

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               1. 94

                  wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  Absolutely.  When I started here I read dozens if not hundreds of hubs on how to write.  It was an enormous help, and I've tried to put a little of that back with my own.  Let's keep them around, but there is really no need to be on google as well.

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   4. 84

      Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I think HubPages is trying to satisfy two different audiences here.
      
      Derek has previously stated that HubPages has a large number of members who have no interest in making money online - they just want to share their work with other Hubbers.  HP doesn't want to drive those people away.

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6. 87

   lobobrandonposted 11 years ago

   Relache, you can still view the number of published hubs at the bottom of this page: http://hubpages.com/about/us
   
   ..../stats now redirects to the about page.

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   1. 72

      relacheposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I'm talking about the stats before they got sanitized.  You used to be able to actually see every single user and Hub just by crawling the listings, so that any human who put in the time could come up with hard, verifiable stats on the site.  For example, you could literally count how many Hubs fell into the different ranges of scores or see who signed up with the site in exact user order.

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      1. 87

         lobobrandonposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Yup, I know what you're talking about. I remember checking those things out and on the broader spectrum the number of hubs with certain number of views etc.

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7. 59

   sleepylogposted 11 years ago

   This is a great step towards assuring the high quality of the content found on HP but I still feel not enough is done to fix or remove the poorly written hubs with bad grammar, vocabulary and spelling. I'm not a racist at all, but people from non-english speaking backgrounds tend to be the worst offenders. Some of their hubs are really not pleasant to read at all. On other content sites, such articles are rejected altogether. Hubs are supposed to be written in English, proper English, and I don't feel this is being enforced strictly enough by HP admin. I report a lot of these hubs and rate them poorly. I've probably opened up a huge can of worms here, but if any other hubbers feel the same way, please help clean up this site by reporting low quality hubs and giving them a thumbs-down.
   
   I also report hubs that are not categorized correctly (this is a good thing for its owner so don't feel bad about doing it) and hubs that are spammy and purely promotional. If all of us reported just one or two low quality hubs each day this site would quickly get much cleaner.

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8. 61

   CASE1WORKERposted 11 years ago

   This is something that should keep the rubbish off this site- at last a solution, thank you.

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9. 72

   relacheposted 11 years ago

   I think one of the most important things to be done is implement this change by itself and see what happens.  Too many adjustments in one go tends to obscure the ability to see the effects of the changes. 
   
   I'm curious to see how many people turn up in the forums wondering why their content was unpublished, or if the majority of the impact hits abandoned/junk accounts.

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   1. 94

      wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I predict we'll see a big surge of posts on "Why my hub unpublished?"  I also think (and hope) we'll see a big surge of abandoned and/or junk accounts disappear.  If nothing else we should see tens of thousands of hubs, written solely for a backlink, disappear and likely entire accounts set up for the same purpose.
      
      In the short run it's going to really hurt HP's earnings; in the long run it will hopefully do a lot of good.

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      1. 46

         Ericdierkerposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         How much do you think I could get paid to write the five hubs?
         (that would be assuming I could write a quality hub ;-)

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      2. 87

         lobobrandonposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         I'd have to disagree with it hurting the income of HP, because I doubt those hubs were getting them any income at all. It would probably help the site entirely as there's not going to be low quality content (At least less of it) out there and so probably other accounts would be better and in turn they would make more.

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10. 87

    lobobrandonposted 11 years ago

    This is what I commented on the blog post, it's not approved yet. Possibly I could get an answer here (I guess it's going to be all hubs, but just curious):
    
    I have a question. As you’ve said, if a person doesn’t have 5 featured hubs, the new ones would be unpublished rather than not being featured.So, does this imply that existing hubbers who have just 1 or 2 featured hubs would see the effect as well or is it just the new comers that would be affected? If it’s going to be everyone, then I’m super-excited as this could pave the way for overall improvement as we won’t be interlinking to a lot of spam (even though there will be a few)

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11. 83

    Marcy Goodfleischposted 11 years ago

    PS to this post:  Note the new sticky at the top of the forum advising us that old hubs will now go through the QAP.  Yay!  This is long overdue!
    
    The sticky doesn't allow for comments, so I just wanted to add my vote here that it's a great step forward.  This is one part of the QAP I wouldn't mind joining - being the Faithful Flagger I am when I hop hubs.

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12. 83

    Marcy Goodfleischposted 11 years ago

    Question - not sure if this was answered or not - if a hub fails QAP but is allowed to be published as per this policy, will the writer get feedback that it has failed (to allow them the option of improving the quality)?  Seems like that would help maintain good quality here.
    
    Also - (please tell me this isn't the case) - I am hoping this does not mean that someone with five published hubs can then publish an unlimited number of QAP failures?  I can see having a ratio of five to one, across the board, but not a free ticket for publishing lower quality hubs just because there are five good ones out there.

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    1. 76

       Marina Lazarevicposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       Hey Marcy! Hubbers with the five Featured Hubs Accolade currently do not receive a notification (or feedback) when their newly published Hubs do not pass the QAP. You are correct that they can publish an unlimited number of Hubs that will not be Featured rather than get unpublished. Keep in mind that this is the first iteration of a pretty major policy change. As both Simone and relache pointed out, we plan to let this run for a while to fully understand the effects before making additional changes. Please keep the feedback coming!

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       1. 83

          Marcy Goodfleischposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          Thanks, Marina - I know this is all a work in progress, so I appreciate the clarification.  My (personal) suggestion would be that Hubbers at some point get the type of feedback that would help them address any quality issues, even if a hub is featured.  And my other suggestion would be to create a limit on the number of hubs that can get a free pass because of having five featured hubs. 
          
          But then, I am grading finals and term papers just now, so I am in a red-pen mode!

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             Marina Lazarevicposted 11 years agoin reply to this

             Those are both great suggestions. I'll be sure to bring them up at our next meeting.
             
             Good luck with the grading!

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13. 88

    WryLiltposted 11 years ago

    Having just tried this out on a new account, I now understand fully how this works. This is a FANTASTIC idea and I think it'll really be good for the site.

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    1. 83

       Marcy Goodfleischposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       Can you expand on what you learned by trying it out in a new account?  Not sure what you mean here.  BTW - I agree - I think it's a great idea.

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       1. 88

          WryLiltposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          I didn't completely understand it... but now I see that it's a great way to send newbies straight back to the drawing board so they know there is a problem, as opposed to them ending up with 50 hubs, only 3 of them featured and then complaining they're making no money!

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