Years ago, the premier writing site was Hubpages. It demanded good work, and paid fairly well.
Many people took advantage of the site to publish rubbish which said nothing and took one thousand words to do it.
Google, going to introduce it’s free site, Knol, decided to slap down Hubpages, call it a ‘Content Farm’ and stop listing items written there on the first ten or so pages of a search.
Hubpages, thinking to be proactive introduced a method for writers to flag the work of brother and sister writers if they felt they were not up to standard.
This seems logical. It isn’t.
If you go to Hubpages you’ll notice something called ‘Hopping Hubs’. It is an invitation to a writer to read and destroy the posts of other writers.
Yes, it sounds harsh, because you would, as an honest person, only flag a post if it was particularly badly written, or an advertisement pretending to be a post.
On Hubpages, the worst possible people are the ‘darlings’ of the site. And what they do is run around and kick down really good posts and then, plagiarise them.
When a post is ‘unfeatured’ it doesn’t exist. You can’f find it on a search or with a plagiarism checker. Aha! you say, realising exactly how the scam operates.
The Darlings, who have spent the early days being the top Hub Hoppers and finding all those nasty bits which shouldn’t be published, or if published, not featured have gained a kind of aura.
The Owners, busy with their counting of money, pleased with their Darlings, sit back and let them do this ‘unpaid’ work of editing. Fantastic isn’t it? To get a gang of people, working for nothing, flagging all those posts which should not be published, or those which slipped by and were published.
The Owners don’t think…
“Hmmmm.. let me take a glance at what my Darlings are doing,” they smile, and say; “Carry On!”
The Darlings run around, often finding their ‘feeding tree’, that is a good writer whose work they can plagiarise.
Here’s how it Works
Good Writer does a well written piece on the Olympics. A Darling copies the post, then flags the piece.
Being flagged, the article written by Good Writer no longer is ‘featured’ therefore it doesn’t exist. It’s there, Good Writer can find it, but no one else can.
The Darling now rewrites the post, changing words here and there, using different images, and publishes the post as the writer.
The Darling is getting the hits. Good Writer is getting nothing.
Good Writer doesn’t see what s/he did wrong why their post is not featured. Good Writer assuming something is wrong, will rewrite, add more paragraphs, do whatever seems necessary to ‘fix’ the post.
The ‘fixed’ version is published. Ah! There it is. At least for a day or two. Then the Darling rushes back, and flags it again.
Good Writer is fed up. Good Writer decides to forget it and posts the item(s) somewhere else.
Disheartened, Good Writer might cease to be active on Hubpages. This is a disappointment to the Darling who has to find someone else to plagiarise.
As more and more Good Writers race away from Hubpages, hits topple.
Once getting 12 Million a month, this dropped to 6 then 3 Million a month. It has, if one reads the various complaints, lost most of it’s prestige and pays very badly.
This is due to the lack of quality. The lack of quality is due directly to the Darlings who have less and less well written items to plagiarise as the Good Writers have moved. In fact, most Good Writers have ceased to be active a long time ago. Only the Darlings and few Newbies still hang around.
Good Writers will either delete their work or just copy and paste. After all, being non-featured is being unpublished.
Some writers use Hubpages for storage. They will write but not publish, by keeping the item as a ‘draft’ to avoid the Darlings.
Hubpages’ Owners seem totally oblivious to what is happening, and taking all things into consideration, that’s the best position for them to adopt.
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Bubblews went downhill because of 'darlings' as you have so well coined the word. They blindly believed what those darlings said without checking and that was the end of Bubblews.
Exactly. When people write for the same site there are those who see it as a 'competition' and so will attack other writers in the belief they will profit.
I think Hub pages allow only those having google ad sense account. It means only the writers having some standard are writing for this site. How can the standard of their wRITE will be decided by another writer is really unholy and unethical.
They should not generally entertain such things even though the website encourages such practice.
The standard writers in that case will have no option but to leave the site using as a storage 'Godown' to their written articles.
I heard that even the Bubblews also has to wound up its business due to unsound practices.
It seems to be common sense not to have a writer sit as arbiter on another writer's work, and recheck any 'flag'. But it doesn't happen in practice. The Darlings have 'ownership' of the site. And despite fact the hits have dropped, the quality has dropped, the Owners can't see the obvious.
That is business. In every business undertakings, there are herds of black sheep. There are cheaters. There are opportunists in the expense of others work. You have all said here of their trickery, of their dirty works. I don't know if you have expressed these things to the admin or the moderators of the said site.
As far as I can remember when Bubblews was still alive and kicking I had flagged several posts which were plagiarized in form. I cited the original article and then the plagiarized one. As I checked it. That post in question had been removed from the site. And also the member himself was removed from the list or even blocked. Those "Darlings" deserve to be persecuted. If not, a brigade of flaggers would be formed and do justice to those victims. All the works of the Darlings would be also be "flagged". Let's see if they could resist it. That is what we call retribuyion.
A real writer joins a writing site to write. Not to play games or get involved in admin. Why bother to go on the site and search around to find who flagged you and flag them? Leave it alone.
In businesses, those that collapse are not good examples for those who don't want to fail. Successful companies don't allow certain practices because they want to be successful.
Yes, I think the articles that are written in their own words with new literary stile with the help of new and functional words such articles are made online anon. I say surely I have written seven articles for Literacy Base none of my articles was rejected and said plagiarism because i have written thousands of articles in my own language. In the world of internet the articles that are original are accepted quickly.
Depending on who/what, if you posted the same things on Hubpages and one of the Darlings was attracted to your writing, your items would be flagged and republished under their names.
This is stupid practice. now I know why this page was never favored by people I asked it about.
It is ridiculous to have one writer of a site sit as arbiter of another writer. This is why few people will recommend Hubpages...if any recommend them. I have been on the site for nearly ten years and my participation has declined over the years. Of course the Owners wouldn't notice.
My friend kaylar said right do your own business and do not poke into other business is a bad habit. Write for the success of you success and for the success of the site that pays you your labor fruit.My friend worked Hub pages but she earned eight dollars in one year I think a very slow process of earning she said Literacy Base is more better than Hub Pages.