SquidU » Lensmastery

WIP: Work in Progress
By Guest Editor N376 aka Glen

Can't lensroll? Can't add your lens to groups? Not coming up in searches? You can't find your lens in your lensmaster profile list?

It's most likely because your lens is brand new (you've just published it for the first time) and it is still in Work In Progress (WIP) status.

It has to graduate to Featured Status before any of the above are made available.

"When will my lens be free of the WIP shackles?"

At the next lensranking. Its freshness should boost it up into Featured Status. Lensranking occurs once a day. So you may have up to a 24 hour wait before the next lensranking depending on when you first published your lens.

"Why?"

The most pertinent reason is it slows down spammers from creating a mediocre lens and submitting it to dozens and dozens of groups. Groupmasters have found a significant drop in the number of lenses which are lacking in quality and hard work. And we want our search results to reflect the best of the best. So this slight delay allows people to contribute a little more content before the general public are exposed to it. Though once published your lens is live and the world can see it, and there are plenty of other means in which to promote your lens.

"How do I know that my lens has made Featured Status?"

In your Dashboard (log in, then go to http://www.squidoo.com/lensmaster/dashboard) there are little green and gray circles that will appear in the Rank column.

Green circles that have a little white check mark in them represent Featured Status.

Gray circles that have a little white minus sign in them represent WIP Status.

Once your new lens has a green circle, you're set to go!

Be aware though, lenses which have spent a long time being neglected can sink back down into WIP Status. Though it's very unlikely that it would happen with a lens that has even a modest amount of visitor activity (traffic).

For more details on WIP lenses, read our FAQ #40.

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More on WIP, from Kimberly
Has your lens gone BACK into WIP?

You may be aware of a thing we have called WIP. WIP stands for Work in Progress. Sometimes, when a new lens gets published, it’s not ready for the world to see it. There are three criteria we use for getting a lens out of WIP:

1. It’s published the first time
2. It has three or more modules
3. It gains a LensRank that meets our WIP threshold – an undisclosed level that changes based on our total number of lenses

Lately, a lot of lensmasters have noticed that some of their lenses have gone from fully published back into WIP. There are several reasons for this:

1. They’ve lost the love! They haven’t been updated lately and are getting stale.
2. They’ve lost the love! They aren’t being promoted so they have no visitors, which can affect LensRank.
3. They’ve lost the love! They haven’t been published recently, so their freshness level is low.

Some lenses are always popular and do well, some need help, and some will never be favorites. For example, I have a lens about my cat. It’s a cutesy thing I put together to show people how to do an “about my pet? type lens. But it isn’t popular, and I’m ok with that.

How can you help your lenses get back into “green" land?

1. Find something new to add, even if it’s just one of our funky new modules! (Read this for some ideas)
2. Email it to a friend, add the link to your blog, have it critiqued in the forum, etc. Spread the word.
3. Publish it. People are more likely to return to lenses that are published frequently.

Once you're done, feel free to post it to Lenses we Like (tell us why you think it's awesome) or the Critique Me category to get more ideas for making it awesome.