Monday, June 22, 2015

HubPages: Low Quality Hubs and Why Reports Are Ignored

In a HubPages forum thread started by Don Bobbitt, many authors expressed their dismay at the massive number of low quality articles on the site. Some people supported the idea of having two separate HubPages sites: an HP site and an HP-PRO site.

Apparently, Hubbers are flagging content, yet most of it remains on the site. Over the past few months, I've made note of the statistics people have provided.

I understand the HubPages business model and I've tried numerous ways to explain it. In short, HubPages will likely ignore the reports of anything that is making them money. Especially the accounts of those they deem "inactive."

Why? The answer is simple: HubPages keeps ALL of the earnings on "inactive" accounts and doesn't need to share it 60/40 with the "active" writers.

Well today, I felt that TIMETRAVELER2 was the voice of reason on a thread with a few shills.

Someone mentioned that 47% of her reports were acted upon to which TIMETRAVELER2 replied:

"You're lucky. Of all the hubs I've reported, only one ever got removed!"

She later stated: "I will add it is not the job of the writers here to serve as teachers for those who come here without the appropriate skills any more than it is HP's job."

FatFreddysCat suggested that HubPages pay out (even a penny per flagged article) to entice authors to help clean up the site.

But I found it rather amusing that Dressage Husband would praise and defend Paul Edmondson. I can only imagine that he is poor at math or has a bad memory (or both).

You see, on May 19th, 2015 Stephen Parkin (aka Dressage Husband) began a dialogue with me on Google Plus. In it, he revealed that only 40% of those he reports get sanctioned. (Shown next). Click to enlarge.

Dialogue with Stephen Parkin on Google Plus about 40 percent of Hubs he reports get acted upon
Screenshot of Google Plus conversation May 19th, 2015 with Stephen Parkin
(aka Dressage Husband on HubPages) / Click to enlarge


Yet today he stated in the HubPages forum that "most of what I report is actioned."


Hmm, 40% before has since magically become "most." 
What could that number be? 51%?

But he's an expert, apparently. Just ask him or (better yet) let him tell you in the HubPages forum.

4 comments:

  1. I guess the site operates on a parallel universe set of rules or something. I am amused.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And I'll still write there till they kick me off.

      Delete
    2. And I'll still write there till they kick me off.

      Delete
    3. Obviously they have some cheerleaders that show up in the forum (in the nick of time). It's a wonder that TIMETRAVELER2 hasn't been banned from their forum.

      Delete