May 25, 2016 at 2:18 am

@rapidblue I’ve given my feedback and my recommendations. Take it or leave it.

May 25, 2016 at 2:08 am

@scheng1 Yes, I think I was actually confusing MyLot with LB in the case of Abby. As for Coral, I don’t think she’s been active here but I believe she did join.

May 25, 2016 at 2:02 am

I have to say my experience with MyLot is mixed. I’ve enjoyed some great conversations there, but I’ve also encountered some really nasty people who seem to spend their time reporting other members despite the fact that they are the ones stirring up the pot. The impression I have of the site owner Alex is he dislikes confrontation strongly, and he has a tough time presiding when it’s a personality clash or two members who are both angry – which seems to be pretty common once the first stone is thrown.

May 25, 2016 at 1:22 am

This is a great idea for getting lots of users producing content around a central theme. Definitely a boost for SEO.

I have submitted my post. I’ll post the link once it publishes 🙂

May 24, 2016 at 10:07 pm

I hadn’t heard about the Payoneer card. PayPal has a linked debit card, but it’s not available in Canada. I really wish it were, because it takes a week or more to withdraw funds to my bank from PayPal.

May 24, 2016 at 6:28 pm

@scheng1 Vincent makes the rounds of the writing web sites. I think Helium is one of his main sites. Crystal is still around, but I believe she’s writing under a different name now.

There are a small handful of former AC writers here. Abby Greenhill and Coral Levang come to mind, though there are probably others.

May 24, 2016 at 5:50 pm

@thinker I would add that writing opinion pieces, or even advice that stems from opinion rather than research, is ill-advised from an SEO point of view. And yet I see dozens and dozens of such pieces on every writing site!

@morgoodie I think it’s safe to say that any time you get more than three people doing the same activity together, the “bare minimum” pattern will begin to emerge. It’s natural for people to want to get the best reward for the least possible effort, but this is am instinct we need to temper with the knowledge that some work is just not a sprint. If you saw Danielle McGaw’s post the other day about web writing being a marathon, that’s a very apt comparison. We need to keep that in mind when we make choices about how much to invest in a given site.

@scheng1 I wrote under Kyla Matton at AC. I was a featured contributor in education, and in health & wellness. I am still in touch with a large number of former AC contributors who have bypassed the social writing sphere, as well as with the few who became part of the Bubblews and related communities 🙂

May 24, 2016 at 5:39 pm

@rapidblue I can see why you got such a high grade level rating! To be very honest, the longer your posts and comments, the more difficulty I have in following your train of thought. I can understand the basic meaning of the sentences – though your diction is often too technical or academic, and frequently I lose the meaning in your metaphors.

I would reiterate my earlier advice: focus on writing shorter, grammatically correct texts that a native English speaker will understand. Work on a simpler choice of diction and on being less figurative, more literal. The improvement in clear, but I’m more lost now when I read you than I was before you started to work on improving your writing skill.

And this is the thing the automated tools can’t give you: none of them can read for MEANING. They can only rate you based on an algo. They can’t tell you if a human reader would be able to follow your text.

May 24, 2016 at 5:44 am

I have come close, at roughly 75 cents for May 23rd. This despite the long period of downtime, and the fact that I was away quite a bit over the weekend. So I do think it’s possible!

May 24, 2016 at 2:15 am

@lookat Great point! Of course, one would hope for a better return on their novel than we see on our posts 😉

May 23, 2016 at 1:29 pm

@bestwriter Agreed, a preview before publishing can be helpful for both posts and comments.

As far as the abuse of the edit button goes, I think sites need to learn to trust the regular contributors not to abuse. There are good reasons to edit, not the least of which is to correct errors or to update information in order to improve the SEO value of a post.

I can understand not allowing a brand new user to edit, just as I understand moderating all posts by a new member. But at a certain point it will become impossible to moderate all posts, and already we are seeing dry spells where no new content is being published.

It’s clear that giving users more freedoms is a risk, but a risk often pays off by bringing benefits to the one who took it. Insisting on a rigid rule will always cost the site, and the cost only climbs the more times the rule must be applied.

May 23, 2016 at 1:01 pm

I think it’s most disappointing that Sheridan has been silent. But this is a group that will flock to a site – or back to it – if there is money to be made. Perhaps this is why so many site owners take advantage….

May 23, 2016 at 12:35 pm

@kaka135 The great thing about writing better is that better money comes with it too 🙂

It’s easy to see the short term, especially with an unproven site. It’s also easy to look around and decide that nobody else is doing more than the bare minimum. So those who want to justify doing less will always find an excuse. And those who try to put more effort into their work will end up being discouraged over the lower rate of pay – or the fact that others are getting the same pay for less work.

At such times the little bonus helps bolster our spirits. Or perhaps it’s the recognition of our fellow writers that will lift us up. If we can all work together to build the community and to reward the higher quality writing, it really does benefit everyone. So we mustn’t be stingy – neither writers nor staff. I think the staff has shown good faith by raising the rates and offering bonuses. Now is the time for the writers to show what we can do.

May 23, 2016 at 11:29 am

Posts that will do well for SEO purposes include DIY/how to, lists, recipes, reviews, etc. The narrower the topic, the better. I have noticed that one or two users here have understood this and are applying the principle to their posts.

While it may be true that writing several 300-word posts will earn you more in the short term than publishing a single longer post, it’s important to keep the long term in sight as well. This is a young site that needs the weight of longer, SEO-friendly content in order to gain ranking as a site. Once this happens, it will benefit us all.

May 23, 2016 at 10:19 am

@support We do appreciate that the maintenance is necessary, and sometimes of such an urgent nature that no advance warning is possible. But reassurance is crucial during such times, especially considering that the writing community has been deceived and disappointed by many other sites over the last year or two.

Please consider in future that you have both a Facebook page and Twitter account, and that even a landing page with a simple maintenance note would provide both users and their readers the information they need. I do not say this to chastise or complain, as it’s simply a fact of life.

We have dealt with so much on so many sites, and many of us have very little trust or patience left. If a site goes down and the staff are not responding, it looks bad for the site and the authors who share our links for content published here. If it happens too often, people will simply give up and move on. The fact that so many started here mere weeks ago, is the result of another site not reliably answering the writers’ needs….