Thanks Megan, for chiming in on this.

Over the last week, I've heard from a few people that have pointed to lenses that they didn't like, that weren't original enough, that were thin, that were basically JUNK. And they said, "how can you permit this to be on the site! Take it down."

I want to remind people of our thinking on these issues.

First, to start, we're delighted that our most active and passionate users are active and passionate. We exist for you guys, and your work makes the site sing. We appreciate the fine work you do.

There's a difference, though, between spam and junk.

Junk is in the eye of the beholder. Junk is a page that probably isn't worth the bits that were used to create it. Junk is the work of a lazy lensmaster. The thing is, junk sinks. It sinks to the bottom of lensrank and it sinks in Google and suddenly it's there if you really really look but basically it doesn't get seen much.

Spam, on the other hand, is an anathema. Spam shows up uninvited, it lies, it interrupts, it steals. We have no tolerance for spamming behavior and we shut it down immediately.

We've discovered that certain kinds of junk lead to spam. Stuff like gambling and various pharma topics. So, to nip the spam in the bud, we just eliminate those topics, which is easy to do and isn't a judgment call.

We also honor the copyright law and the DMCA (but work hard to defend both fair use and honest conversations between creators). If a copyright owner notifies us and can demonstrate infringement, we will lock the lens that infringed.

If you don't like a junky lens, ignore it. Don't waste time on it. It's like a junky blog. It doesn't hurt the good name of blogging, it's just ignored.

Squidoo is really hitting its stride. We just passed 21,000,000 page views for the month, and that's because great lensmasters are building great lenses, not because we've assembled a squadron of junk-police who censor pages that some of our users find lousy.

Squidoo is not a curated collection of the best pages on the internet. It's an open system with clear rules of engagement, and we're going to do our best to stay that way. I hope you can work with us to continue to make it better.

We take your concerns very seriously, even if we don't always do exactly what you want us to. I hope you can embrace the system we've got and work with us to create ever better pages on more and more topics.

Thanks.

Last edited by sethgodin (02/19/2009 11:56 am)

Thanks for communicating this with everyone.  It is reassuring.

Thank you Megan and Seth.

I think from time to time it’s probably a good idea to reassure our loyal community with such sensible words.

I believe that because we are so protective of “our"  site, sometimes we may tend to lose focus or hope.

Yes, I am a “glass half full" kinda gal, rather than a “glass half empty" , I always prefer to focus on the positive than dwell on the negative.  Life’s just too darn short.

I would love to see that we all focus our collective energies on quality lenses!

For me, I like to reward those lenses by visiting them and leaving some love (stars).  Those deserve my positive attention and encouragement.

To be quite honest, I spend so much time visiting all of your quality lenses (you guys keep me busy LOL) or working on my own lenses, I very rarely see a junk lens.

If I do happen to see a lens I think is junk, I will definitely try to make another quality lens or if I don’t have the time, I’ll revisit an older lens and try to make it even better.

Squidhugs all around everybuddy!

Kathy aka “Pretty Bullet"

ps - if you would like to visit some quality lenses, drop by http://www.squidu.com/forum/viewtopic.p … 65&p=1

Last edited by awelldressedbullet (02/19/2009 2:33 pm)

A Squidnoobie wrote, not that long ago, that he read an article posted by one of the editors of an e-zine that it was better to publish 100 mediocre articles a month than to post 4 really good ones. The Squidnoobie furthermore said that he would not budge on writing really good stuff. He said that it didn't seem conscionable to write mediocre articles. He also said that understanding the reason behind littering the archives with junk, he still would only write the real good stuff, or stuff that he felt good about. This, he felt, would lead to greater credibility, which is tantamount to relevance, which in turn is the very key to success here or anywhere in life.

Wait.....I wrote that not that long ago. 

My beliefs in that approach are what are going to cause me to take a relatively long time to reach Giant status. But, I'll reach it with pride and the help of some of the best this community has to offer.

We've always had junk and spam in our society. There is no clear cut way to get rid of it immediately, but in the long run, it becomes non-relevant and goes directly from the mailbox to the trash can.

Pro Spam
A tradition is slaughtered

Last edited by drifter0658 (02/19/2009 7:54 pm)

Thank you for posting, Megan and Seth -- very much appreciated. Definitely on board with your gentle reminder to focus on what we CAN change and to trust you more to handle what YOU can change. Indeed, I'm very proud to be a part of the Squidoo Evolution -- and Revolution.

The response from Megan and Seth confirms what I have seen demonstrated from squidoo HQ since I've been here.  They have our best interest at heart and they are usually a step ahead of us.  Works for me!

Thank you Megan and Seth. It's reassuring that you are cracking down on the cases of blatant plagiarism. I've never had so much of a problem with junk lenses as I think people arrive on them and bounce right off again. In fact, I quite like it when there's something I want to write about and I find the only other lens or lenses on the topic are junk. I know I can do better.

The saddest thing is seeing newbies doing spammy stuff trying to sell the same ebooks or products as loads of other people and knowing they are entering a very overcrowded marketplace. If only these people could be guided to produce something more interesting, they would probably find it would be more personally satisfying and possibly more financially rewarding too. But hey, we can't put our own years of experience into somebody else's head.

It's nice to know HQ is taking our concerns seriously. After all, we are part of Squidoo and want it to be the best possible network and for lensmasters to emulate the best lenses and not settle for 2nd or 3rd best.


.

Ramkitten wrote:

Just my two cents...

I think one way to combat the problem of junky, lazy lenses--not to mention plagiarism--is pier pressure. Make it as sociably unacceptable as possible. In my view, that means don't give those five stars away and join fan clubs so readily. I think the latter seems to be the bigger problem. If you want to "check back to see if they've improved the lens," well, save the link to your computer perhaps. Bookmark it in a way that doesn't give them impression you approve of their junk. Pretty please? It's disheartening to see a creator of, say, one, two, three lenses of out-n-out junk with growing fan clubs. Heck, I even saw someone with NO lenses and NO profile with four or five fans. Huh?

Okay, I'll hush up now.

I totally agree with you. I would never want to be associated with a poor lens no matter how much I wanted to see how it will develop. If I'm that curious, I'll do what you say and bookmark it. Actually, some lenses with fans are so poor I can't imagine why anybody would expect them to get better and why they don't withdraw their membership of the fan club when they don't improve.

I never give undeserved stars and I only give what I think the lens should get so I reserve 5* for really great lenses.

The problem with peer pressure is that people need to know and care that others disapprove of or don't like their work. If they don't care about Squidoo, only about using it as a platform for their lenses, they won't visit the forum or really know what people think.

Megan, thanks for starting this conversation. I get disappointed whenever I find a lens with a 4 sentence intro, a couple of Amazons, YouTubes, and a guest book. A lensmaster could create that in their sleep. And, when I see that it has a 5-star rating with 14 people rating it, I'm dumbfounded. Obviously, with that many ratings, it is not a work-in-progress. I'm even more dumbfounded when I discover that the lens created was by a Giant Squid. Yep, some of the offenders are Giants that seem to think that quantity is just as important as quality.

I think whenever we find a lens like this, we rate (as we always should) appropriately - 1, 2 or 3 stars. If it doesn't deserve a 4 or 5 star rating, don't give it. If you are afraid of recriminations, then don't leave a comment. If you are asked to rate a poor lens, send the lensmaster a private message saying that if you rated it, you'd have to give it a x (whatever) and give them specific suggestions that would make it  a 5-star lens. Tell them to let you know when it is ready and you'll gladly go back and rate it. I've actually done that to some personal friends that I got started in Squidoo. Did it ruffle feathers? I don't think so. I do know that their lenses got better and were good enough in my opinion to rank 5 stars.

Frankster wrote, "I'm even more dumbfounded when I discover that the lens created was by a Giant Squid."

Uh-huh. I was thinking of metioning that, but I chickened out. (Before.) I can't say I've seen a LOT of that, myself, but it certainly does happen. I'm under the impression, though, that the standards are higher now for being granted Giant Squidom than they once were. I could be wrong on that, of course. Hope not.

Thanks to everyone for focusing on what matters here, and for sharing your thoughts in a productive way.

A reminder about the Giant Squids: Qualification for the program is rigorous, now more than ever. You have to have at least 50 amazing lenses to even apply. (The reason being that when quality AND quantity intersect, there's something special happening and a clear commitment to being a leading lensmaster).  I am quite sure that in addition to their exceptional lenses, Giant Squids have several other in-progress lenses in their accounts, just like every other lensmaster here (myself included).  Lenses that need love and attention and editing.  Finding a few less good, underdeveloped lenses in a Giant's account does not demerit them.  Especially not when there's a relative plethora of good stuff to be had.

Kimberly had a great post about this a few weeks ago: http://www.squidu.com/blog/2009/02/10/w … d-they-go/

And I'll remind us all of the Giant Squid requirements here: http://www.squidoo.com/GiantSquids

In short:  Let's give everyone room to breathe and build good lenses. Rate and recommend and share the best ones you discover. Rate or skip the ones you don't think are any good. Report the ones that are maliciously harming or stealing or spamming.

Thanks.

@susannaduffy: You're welcome, of course, to report plagiarism cases here: http://www.squidoo.com/pages/spam.  That's not spamming the staff -- that's just the right place to get the complaint noted! 

Our point in this thread is that it's probably not the best or happiest use of your valuable time to spend your days scanning Squidoo for plagiarism cases.  Also because provenance can be hard for an onlooker in the situation to demonstrate and prove.  And so we encourage lensmasters to focus on making their good stuff shine, and let copyright battles happen between the 2 people or sites concerned. Of course, if someone rips *your* content, that's another story and I hope you'll send it in right away.

And rest assured that, as Seth said, we honor the copyright law and the DMCA (but work hard to defend both fair use and honest conversations between creators). When a copyright owner notifies us and can demonstrate infringement, we lock the lens that infringed.