The day after Seth Godin announced HubPages was acquiring key content from Squidoo, I wrote Can Squidoo Do This? I'm pleased to see it's currently ranked 75th on InfoBarrel's Top 100.
Soon there ended up being six pages worth of discussion about it in InfoBarrel's forum post Squidoo is Moving to HubPages. It was within that forum thread that I learned how desperate HubPages was for us to all agree to "click a link" and "enter a code" (even those who already had an existing HubPages account).
Notably, Dancingqueen (who later revealed herself as Marisa Wright) ended up addressing many concerns.
TanoCalvenoa asked, "I wonder though if they're not moved (if the "transfer" button wasn't clicked), if the lenses [articles] will be deleted and just disappear?"
Marisa Wright (aka Dancingqueen) stated: "They won't be deleted, but when the site closes down the site closes down - so they will disappear."
Further along, she asked: "Would people prefer that Squidoo did what Helium, Today.com and many others did - just close down and let all your articles disappear?"
To which I replied: "Actually yes, I would prefer that. My work is not Seth's to sell. And, for the entire time that my lenses are online, I am also earning money for Squidoo (I didn't have an affiliate account like I do now). Foolishly, I split 50 - 50 with Squidoo (since I liked the idea of half benefiting charity)."
On some of my articles, I had to delete comments that were abusive, unfortunately.
In my November 9th, 2014 article Want to Leave HubPages? How to Get All of Your Earnings, both "Intheknow" (Barbara Kay on HubPages) and "Ernie" [who isn't really Ernie, but who purchased the profile on the condition he wouldn't post anything] decided to bully me in my comments section. By far, this "Ernie" person was the worst (and I had to delete a comment).
Who knows who he really is, but he's from Stockholm, Sweden. And impersonating someone to deceive (known as spoofing) and use this fake identity to cyberbully is illegal.
December 7th, 2014, I received the following email from Sue Adams. You can click it to enlarge. The subject line: Stop it already.
Then, near the end of April, an author on HubPages (who had my email address ever since our Squidoo days) successfully managed to pull InfoBarrel (and their other sites) offline. Why? Because I took a screenshot of the portion where it states "money changed hands" in the Squidoo-HubPages deal.
Unfortunately, this cost the writing platform I love too much. InfoBarrel issued the statement: "While we did comply with the request, we felt that the DMCA [NOI] itself was invalid and should have fallen under fair use."
Since then, I've decided to blog about the facts instead. That way, HubPages cannot punish other writers and the InfoBarrel platform because I am exposing the truth.
On May 20th, 2015, I was met with some pseudo-threats from someone I used to follow, a fellow Canadian. I was shocked that he repeated the same mantras I've read for months:
"You are unwilling to actually log in..., If you logged in you can delete all of your Lenses (now Hubs)..., Paul says you need to login..., Rose, I suggest you log on and remove your work yourself."
I think I've been told to "click the link" or "log on" about a dozen times now.
So, to clear up any doubts, there are sane, logical reasons why I refuse to "just login and delete my work" and they are as follows:
My blog post, Telling the Truth: When Shills Try to Make You Look Bad, also touches on this.
1) I reported that first email from HubPages as a phishing attempt.
Why? Squidoo HQ members were made aware of my wishes (as were hundreds of writers). Squidoo also promised to never, ever sell our email addresses.
2) I am one of the few to have fully read the HubPages Terms of Use. And, I didn't join since it states: Author content cannot be removed from the Service and that HubPages requires current tax information (including SSNs and perhaps passport info) PRIOR to issuing any earnings.
3) I do not trust their records or statistics. Just reading through their forum is enough to tell me they do not keep accurate records. How can I trust that I will receive my deserved share of Amazon or eBay royalties either?
So the fact that Paul Edmondson is trying to belittle me through others - who have even gone as far to say that my case would require "the US equivalent of our [Canadian] Supreme Court" is pretty vile.
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