Freelancing at Home

The site may still be there and it may still show up in search engines (not that I used the site since I knew what bunk most of the articles were), but to freelance writers, eHow.com is no longer the cash cow it once was.

Today, May 5, I received an e-mail that announced "Important news about your articles on ehow.com". At first I held my breath thinking they were once again deleting content at random as they had been doing for months. Well, I was partially right, but boy was I ever wrong. What I read instead floored me, smacked me in the face and then kicked me in the ribs a couple times. eHow is closing down the WCP permanently.

It's closing down today and, unless you take their special offer, you will receive your last payment (for May 1 - 5, despite the fact that they won't remove articles until May 30) next month, as usual (even if you don't make $10). If you do accept the offer you'll receive your next two payouts on June 15 and July 15.

It's a logical step, but all this time we've been told our articles will remain posted and continue to earn. I feel like I was lied to. I shouldn't be shocked though considering the week before closing the WCP they told us there were no plans to close the WCP.

I found this while digging through some of my old eHow notes. I must have saved it when Larry Zafran posted it because I hadn't yet been on eHow for six months and I wanted to give it a try. Even just looking at it brought a smile to my face and memories of good times; I hope some of the old eHowers who read will have the same fond memories I have of it. I don't think the thread about this exists on eHow anymore; it's hard to know since so much was lost when they changed the forums.

And thanks, Larry, for giving us so much fun.

Hi All. I'm hoping that some of you can humor me by participating in this experiment that I came up with. It's a formula, and I'd like to see how accurately it estimates your current monthly earnings. I'll make the math as simple as I can, and will provide examples. Note that this formula probably won't be very accurate for members who have been on the site for less than 6 months, and who have less than 100 articles.

1) Take the number of months since you wrote your first article, and divide it by 12. Call that number A. For example, if you've been active on the site for 4 months, do 4 divided by 12 to get 0.333. If you've been on the site for 15 months, do 15/12 to get 1.25.

2) Take the number of articles that you have, and divide it by 400. Call that number B. For example, if you have 225 articles, do 225 divided by 400 to get 0.563. If you have 475 articles, do 475 divided by 400 to get 1.188.

Note: The constant of 400 assumes that you work hard to produce quality articles and promote them, either on or outside of eHow. It also assumes that you are active on the forums, and as such get noticed by new or prospective members and other vistors to the site. It also assumes that you have considerably more articles and have been on the site for longer than the suggested minimum values given above. Depending on the extent to which all these factors apply, in this step you may need to use a constant closer to 1000 in place of 400.

3) Multiply A times B. For example, if A was 0.333 like above, and B was 0.563 like above, you would get 0.187. Call that number C. Don't worry about rounding issues in each case.

4) Multiply C times 1000, which is most easily done by moving the decimal point three spaces to the right. In this case you would get 187. I'm guessing that the answer you get is somewhat close to your current monthly income. There are logical explanations for why your earnings may be somewhat higher or lower than that number based on various factors that have nothing to do with ad clicks on your specific articles (which eHow claims is not the issue, and which I agree with).

Without revealing your actual income (unless you truly want to), please post how accurately this formula reflects your current monthly earnings. Some of the constants in the formula may need some tweaking depending on what people say, and of course it will always just be an experimental estimate and not apply to everyone the same.

For the record, now that I've been on eHow more than a year - granted, I don't have the required 100 articles and never will now - my earnings were off by about $180. I wish I was making that much more than I am. I actually wonder if I should stop counting the time I've been on eHow to consider the closing of the WCP. When I do that, it's far closer to accurate.

Go ahead and share what your stats look(ed) like if you want.

eHow removed the ability to change titles on existing content. Not only did they basically ‘fire’ all their freelance writers and toss them into the wind with a minimum of notice, but they are now slowly removing the control we were supposed to be left with of the currently published articles.

After telling us for more than a month not to edit - it was only advice, not a command, but since the publishing tool was beyond broken and was locking articles in the abyss of who knows where, it was ‘strongly recommended’ and you didn’t have a choice in the matter if you wanted to keep the article - eHow has still not come in to tell us it is safe. I had one article that has earned nothing since being published - which is strange since an article with the same keyword is earning steadily every day - just pennies, literally, but still almost every day. I realized the problem might be the poorly thought out title. I interrupted the keyword with another word and decided to take my chances with the publishing tool - the only thing I had to lose was some bad ads since there was no money on the line yet.

Well much to my surprise, the article editor opened with no problem. I even switched to expanded mode without any trouble. I even saved and published it without a problem. The problem? We no longer have control over the titles of the articles we wrote for eHow. The titles are locked in and with no ability to write new content, that means you’re stuck with a crappy title if you wanted to fix it somehow. I’m sure this was done to spare them the trouble of ‘losing’ titles for Demand Studios since they hate duplicate titles - if the titles created are static then eHow always knows what exists.

Next thing you know, they’ll completely remove our ability to put links in the resources section, remove the ability to edit the Items Needed and then we just won’t be allowed to edit the article at all. Maybe even the option to delete will be taken off the table. Just wait, eHow is slowly taking away our power as freelance writers - the powers they promised us we would continue to have even after eHow closed its doors.

I complained a couple weeks ago now, that I had still not received an official e-mail about any of the changes happening with the WCP on eHow - an e-mail I have still not received - and told the community managers that I believed until I received official notice that they had no way to create a new contract with me - after all, if I was not informed of the new TOU through the accepted means, ie. the e-mails and PMs everyone else received then I had not been official notified. I also pointed out that my 7 day publishing window should not begin until I received this notice, same as everyone else.

This is community manager, Rich's response:

In the meantime, you may keep publishing until you receive the official notification that states that your transition is complete and your 7-day window will start once you receive that email. Thank you for your cooperation. -Rich

I logged in Thursday to post an article only to discover my publishing ability was turned off. Mind you, I have still received no official news of the eHow WCP suspension from eHow, nor did I ever receive an e-mail or PM - which were repeatedly promised to me - giving me the dates of my 7 day window.

Basically, I was lied to. Rich's word on that forum acts as the word of eHow. By telling me I would be able to continue to publish until the e-mails were received as promised means a new contract was entered into. That it's in writing makes it even more solid. Now, if this had been inaccurate or if Rich didn't have the authority to make such a promise then I should have received an immediate response saying this was incorrect - along with the correct details. Instead, I'm now being ignored when I ask for information.

eHow never notified my of changing contracts, though apparently I will be agreeing to them if I continue to use the site, and I was not informed of anything about the DS and eHow merger in an official manner - and really, official is all that matters; that I heard from a friend who heard from a bird doesn't really cut it in court, eHow.

When eHow began the merger with Demand Studios, they claimed that you had a 7 day window to keep publishing on eHow - April 13. This then changed to be a 7 day window from the time you received your login information from Demand Studios (and if you didn't get accepted or already wrote for DS you had until April 13).

My 7 day window is apparently still very wide open as I have received no e-mails at all from eHow about this merger.

What I have received is deletion e-mails from eHow. I've had articles deleted before - back when they first started making guidelines but didn't bother to tell the writers what the guidelines were, but I have not lost an article in many, many sweeps now, even when I did publish something new.

But suddenly, when I began publishing within the new time frame, my new articles are being deleted left and right despite following guidelines - I'm well aware that they follow guidelines as I'm one of the most anal people about the guidelines.

One was a recipe - A Wiccan Acne Recipe. I don't see how a recipe can be anything except a how to article; you do this, this and this and you get this. It was reportedly an 'opinion'. I'm not sure how a recipe can be an opinion.

The second was how to write a letter of complaint. I looked at a letter I had written, went paragraph by paragraph on what should be said and how it should be said. I even told how to mail it. It was "missing steps". Maybe I forgot to tell them to pick up a pencil and write on a piece of paper. Would hate you to try writing all that with your finger.

Another was a legal article - Creating a Perform or Quit Notice - done in the same vain as a few other legal articles I have written. It was said to be 'poorly written'. Knowing I don't write poorly and that I don't make many grammar and spelling mistakes I find that beyond impossible to believe.

eHow, if you didn't want new content, you could have just said so. You didn't have to make up weird excuses for deleting.

This also explains the perpetual stuck in draft/unavailable mode that everyone suffers as soon as they attempt to publish something on eHow right now. They're saying it's a 'publishing bug' but by now, we should all know 'publishing bug' is code for, "We'd rather you just went away, but we can't tell you that and save face, so we'll make up excuses for why there are 'problems'."

You may think eHow doesn't have a future for you because they are closing down the WCP forever. But you'd be wrong. Don't pack up your articles and take them to another playground just yet.

Old articles on eHow may continue to earn, but eHow won’t be accepting anymore user generated content. Everything will now have to go straight through Demand Studios. Don’t let yourself get caught up in the doldrums about the eHow and Demand Studios merger. If you were or weren’t accepted to Demand Studios, if you will or will not miss eHow itself, none of that matters. What you need to focus on right now is your own bottom line. Demand Media is doing it so why not you!?

First, you need to publish all you can right now. Don’t just pump out crap, but if you have half finished articles laying around now is the time to make the time. Finish those up. Set aside any other projects that are not absolutely vital and finish any half written how to articles or write up some that you have had in mind for a while and just never got around to. You have until April 13 to get in as much content as possible before eHow closes the publishing door forever.

But what about when that publishing door closes?

Edit, edit, edit.

I always wanted to go through my articles - and I did with a few - and fix up keywords, rewrite murky areas, etc. The ones that I did fix up saw improved earnings in just a month and most have become steady earners.

If you’re going to have all of a lifetime - or at least the lifetime of eHow - to edit articles then why not take advantage of it? Get the most out of what you already have published. Looking at first written articles is usually very helpful. This is content that many people used to cut their teeth; they didn’t know about SEO, about keywording, about backlinking, etc. Well now you do. Go put that information to good use.

What are you planning to do to get the most out of what’s left of eHow’s WCP?

Okay, you hopefully know what is happening with the eHow and Demand Studios merger (if not, follow the link and I explain what is going on). But what does this merger mean for everyone who was pre-accepted or who separately applied for and was accepted to Demand Studios?

Some questions I gave to Remi, DS Community Manager, and her answers. (These are paraphrases, not quotes).

Q. Previously there was a 5 year limit for revenue share in Demand Studios. What is it now?

A. There is no longer a limit for revenue share. It was lifted entirely.

Q. Is the secret algorithm used for earning on eHow the same algorithm that is used for Demand Studio revenue share?

A. The same algorithm is used for Demand Studio and for eHow.

Q. Will current articles on eHow continue to earn as usual and will I be able to check them?

A. Yes. Your account will be accessible to you and you can check up on articles published with the WCP.

Q. If I decide to delete content from eHow in say, 2 months, will I still be able to?

A. Yes, you will be able to delete or edit articles that were published under the WCP.
And there you have it. Those were the only questions I really saw fit to ask. To me, this isn't a bad thing. I think eHow became severely overrun with people who posted spam articles, junkie articles, PLR articles (oh, you probably know who I'm talking about), etc. that they just decided to do away with the WCP all together.

By making people send in a resume to work for Demand Studios - have I mentioned I was denied twice by Demand Studios when I applied myself? - they will cut down on the number of really bad writers or those who just want to game the system. And no more clickfraud rings! Okay, maybe there will be, but I bet it will be easier to catch.

Am I upset? You bet'cha. They went about this wrong in so many ways, including having an article sweep today, which has me almost crying with laughter even though I haven't lost anything, and the brunt of the anger people are feeling could have been relieved by just being honest before. But what's done is done and I don't think this is a bad move for eHow.

I'm sure the Internet is a flurry by now, with the news of eHow's 'exciting' changes. I'm equally sure that 99% if not 100% of the information going around now is negative.

Surprisingly, as much as I despise how eHow has chosen to do this (ie, telling us on April 5 that they are discontinuing the Writer's Compensation Program on April 5) I am not against the change.

First, what's going on.

Today, when I woke up from my naptime, I wandered over to eHow to run my eHow earning's tracker (created by the wonderful 17of26, by the way) and I get this huge popup that reads:

IMPORTANT NOTICE:
Demand Studios is now the exclusive platform for writing new articles for eHow.com

This change will not impact your existing articles or payments currently affiliated with the Writer Compensation Program. For more on this change and how it affects you, please check your eHow and your personal email accounts.

My sleep addled brain didn't quite understand any of this and it didn't help that I had absolutely no e-mail or PMs from eHow explaining what it was talking about - for the record, as of right now, 7PM on April 5, I still haven't received an acceptance/denial e-mail.

What's going on though is that the WCP is being canceled. Articles that were published pre-April 5 will continue to earn just as they always have. No change at all. You can't publish new articles though. If you had articles in draft, you have 7 days to try and get them published under the WCP - good luck with that, the publishing tool is still broken, and now we all know why they didn't bother to try and fix it.

So to make life easier for both eHow writers and for Demand Studios HR department, they are pre-approving eHow members who had a high acceptance rate (in other words, you had less than 20% of your articles deleted during sweeps or outside of sweeps by eHow staff. This does not include articles you deleted yourself). Of course, all the approval and denial letters are not going out at the same time, because that would just make the world too calm and coherent. So while some are reading their e-mails and asking questions, those of us who didn't get an e-mail are going wtf are you talking about!?

I, myself, received a message from a community manager on Demand Studios, Remy:

My name is Remi and I’m the Community Manager at Demand Studios. You’ve been vocal about publishing and writing on eHow.com and I want to make sure your Demand Studios experiences are positive ones. If you’d like to talk to me about Demand Studios, please reply with your phone number and I’ll give you a call.

Seeing as I hadn't/haven't gotten my acceptance letter I was even more confused by this and sent my phone number right on out. Remi called shortly after, maybe 30 minutes - very prompt, and I was informed that I was accepted.

Apparently those who were 'vocal' about eHow's past mistakes, you know, like the eHow UK scam or members receiving death threats or eHow 'fixes' that never happened received this e-mail. Most likely to give them the lowdown in a more calm environment than the eHow forums are turning out to be. I enjoyed the phone call, personally. Others who received it are making a big deal out of it, like they're blacklisted or something. Personally, eHow, if this is a blacklist, keep me on it, I enjoyed talking with Remi and she was very polite.

So now you know what's happening, let's talk about what the eHow merger with Demand Studios means for everyone.

Last week, eHow released a thread on the forum where a community manager, Julie, gave some dates for eHow site fixes.

Well nothing was fixed at the end of the week as the timeline said. And when I say nothing, I mean, absolutely nothing was fixed as promised.

So the date on the thread was changed to be for the week of the 22nd, and all the issues and their promised fix dates were left exactly the same:

Photo Upload Issue (problem with image upload tool and photos disappearing from articles) - fixes to be released by the end of this week

I Did This (problem with editing IDT or Save & Preview) - fixes to be released by end of this week

Unavailable Article Status (excluding Unavailable Status due to edits) - fixes to be released by end of this week

Edit/Publish Article then page that keeps redirecting - fixes to be released next week

It's Friday once again and not a single one of the 'by the end of the week' fixes are out.

So I guess they'll just be changing the date and leaving everything the same as before. Last I checked, by the end of this week is supposed to mean by the end of the first week you posted it, not by the end of whatever new date you choose to put on it. At least hold yourselves accountable, eHow, for fixing one thing on the 'by the end of this week' list.

Sorry I missed this at the beginning of the week when it was published. eHow's forum is harder than ever to navigate with all the bugs and with almost no communication - other than poor, lone Julie, eHow community manager, trying to put out fires left and right - I wasn't really looking for anything like this.

This was posted on Monday, March 15. So keep in mind, the end of this week means March 19, Friday, when eHow staff gets off work.

Photo Upload Issue (problem with image upload tool and photos disappearing from articles) - fixes to be released by the end of this week

I Did This (problem with editing IDT or Save & Preview) - fixes to be released by end of this week

Unavailable Article Status (excluding Unavailable Status due to edits) - fixes to be released by end of this week

Edit/Publish Article then page that keeps redirecting - fixes to be released next week

So tomorrow is the end of the week and I have not seen any of the 'by the end of this week' fixes rolled out. So that means tomorrow, probably right before they get off work, they're going to try to roll out the three patches to the system. Whether it works, they probably won't care until they get into work again on Monday.

And after yesterday's post you thought I was going to be done talking about eHow, didn't you? Actually, so did I. Or at least I hoped I would be. But, Rich, the eHow community manager, came in with an answer to the eHow UK redirections not functioning at all on slower internet connections. From Rich:

Re-directs are a non-issue whether whatever connection you are using. It maybe a little bit slower to process if you're on a 56K connection, but generally speaking that's what happens when you don't have high-speed internet.

But wait! That doesn't seem to answer the question I posed at all. I witnessed, with mine own eyes, the redirection not working on a slower computer. It wasn't that I needed to wait a few minutes longer for the redirection to work - and even if that were the case, why would someone wait for a redirect that they don't know is coming when they are staring right at the whole article on their screen, complete with money making ads (money making for eHow, not for the freelancer who wrote it, since we aren't compensated for eHow UK viewer use). The redirection just timed out! It stopped trying to redirect at all because both the redirect and the computer were too slow. So that left me just staring at the article on the UK page.

So Rich has once again stuck his foot in his mouth and told a bald face lie. Non-issue, my ass! I witnessed the issue firsthand, so don't try to pull the wool over my eyes.

It's always so easy to say something is a non-issue when it's your company stealing those extra dollars and cents all year long.

Six months after the big eHow UK Scam staff finally started admitting the mirrored site was causing problems. Of course, this was only after at least five or six months of utterly denying that it was causing problems - meaning they flat out lied to their freelance writers. After admitting the problem they told writers they would remove our content from the UK site. Well they lied again - they decided to redirect all content instead.

That would be all fine and good except that the eHow redirects are slow - painfully slow. While using a friend's computer - a computer that doesn't have the same kick as mine - I tried to view an eHow article. The article link was a UK link, but it tried to redirect to a US .com article. The redirect timed out though because the computer was too slow. And rather than going to an error page it sat on the UK article page.

This UK page was set up with the full article, all ads intact and everything else. So if someon else, a real viewer, has the issues that I had, they might find themselves clicking an ad on that article. Guess what that means, eHow freelancer? You aren't going to get your payment.

As long as the articles remain on the eHow UK site in their entirety, there are going to continue to be problems. Of course, eHow hopes that freelance writers won't notice this since we have no access to information beyond a very slow, once a day or less updating of views and earnings.

What does eHow community manager, Rich or other staff have to say about this issue? We'll have to wait and see, but based on the silence to most other questions, I'm guessing there won't be an answer.

Prepare to continue to lose money to people with slow internet connections, those who hit 'stop' when a page is mostly loaded because waiting for all the images to load is annoying or those whose computers are a little overworked.

I was right. Rich gave an answer to the redirect problem on eHow UK and called it a non-issue. I guess everything's a non-issue when it means you can funnel more money from your writers.

So after the big, long wait and after more than 6 months of problems with the eHow UK scam, including problems that are still not fixed for some members, eHow gave us that promised compensation along with our payment this month.

Might as well have just reached through the computer and slapped all your freelance writers in the face, eHow! That probably would have been more respectful than the 10% or less that most writers earned (that's 10% of a single month's earnings, not 10% of the 6 months our articles were being used without permission and after eHow staff said how they felt we should be compensated generously).

To make matters worse, not only was the compensation a joke, but it was put in with the normal monthly payment. Meaning if you wanted to pursue legal action, you can't just deny the so called generous compensation, you have to deny all of your earnings from January. This forces freelancers for eHow to either accept it and shut up so that they can buy groceries for the month or to deny it all and hope they don't starve (or can't pay their bills or whatever you might spend your monthly earnings on. Mine happens to be groceries).

Yes, you can use Paypal to refund a portion, but since you can't mark that portion as UK compensation it can just be brushed off as anything eHow wants to spin it to be.

eHow, QUIT SCAMMING YOUR WRITERS! Your shit don't smell any sweeter than any other writing sites. In fact, you're the only writing site I've been to that piles the shit up to the waist and tries to act like it's not there.

Just so everyone knows, and I'm being totally transparent here, since the start of December, my earnings have been down by an average of $2 a day and then advanced to being down by an average of $3 a day. After months of this, I got $14 and some change. You do the math. That is definitely not my $2 a day. And even being generous, as December is usually lower earnings on the internet due to holidays, $14 doesn't cover even close to what was truly lost.

I did not even get 10% of my average prior to the eHow UK scam. I got about 7%.

Now, where's the real money I made off those articles? Cut generous and other useless adjectives, I just want the truth.

After the eHow UK redirecting issues were pointed out to eHow staff, it was reportedly fixed this Monday, Feb. 8.

I can't say after all this that I'm happy with eHow or that I can really trust their word that all the eHow UK issues are worked out. After running off with earnings for more than 6 months, only offering compensation after a month of beatings from freelance writers (and with the word spreading around freelance writer circles quickly) and now this issue of articles not redirecting as was promised (actually they were promised to be deleted, but that's also a different matter and a different complaint), I can't say I expect eHow or Demand Studios to act appropriately in the future.

Do you think eHow will ever get this 'international' act figured out? Or should they just drop it and maybe, fix what they already have?

Quick edit: This is not fixed as was claimed by Rich, eHow's community manager. Some articles are now redirecting properly when they were not previously, but many are still not redirecting. Some are also redirecting to "this article does not exist" pages when the article does indeed exist.

eHow writers, you might want to check to see if eHow is trying to pull the wool over your eyes with their lies.

I previously reported that it appeared the eHow UK scam was over but it seems that's not the case. A timeline of three weeks was given to remove all US member articles from eHow UK and instead redirects went up for all US content. Most were okay with this - as they should be since redirecting traffic means you still earn and you have a chance of a UK reader clicking on your article link from the UK site. The problem?

Not all links are redirecting properly. We're way past that three week deadline where we were told content would be removed (not redirected as happened, and no one ever bothered to clarify that that was or was not how it was going to stay) and yet some content is still blatantly being stolen.

People can cry, "You signed the TOU and it gives them the right to do this" all they want, but the fact is eHow admitted that they felt there was a wrong doing and were going to fix it. That makes them liable for it now when things are not being fixed. It was an agreement in writing from eHow staff that we would have content removed and the eHow UK scam problem fixed and it isn't happening properly.

So how is this going to affect compensation? Well, I can't answer for sure since I don't work for eHow, but my theory is that you'll be compensated on those articles that aren't redirecting properly up through January. "But it's still not redirecting so I'm still not making money on it," you may say. I think eHow will simply say 'tough titty' in response (and the milk ain't still good, it's actually curdling).

Rich, eHow community manager, sat down with the general manger of eHow to get around to answering some of the common UK questions, aka the questions they should have thought about before putting all the freelance writer work on eHow UK.

Most importantly it was announced that there is compensation in the works for everyone. Even if you think you weren't affected by the eHow UK scam then you may be pleasantly surprised to find an extra bundle of money in your Paypal along with your January payment.

All I can say is, about time, eHow! This is something that should have been taken care of immediately if not forseen and avoided entirely to begin with.

At the same time, I'm thrilled that it's finally fixed and I can go back to not reading the eHow forum, so thank you, eHow.

And Rich, learn to actually communicate with people like a big boy. You are a community manager, act like one and manage people of the community. Also, please announce when you get answers and post them on the eHow blog. Not all people check the blog.

And now the million dollar question, do I think it's safe to start writing at eHow for freelance writers? I'm not sure. eHow is still experiencing extreme glitches and bugs, including not being able to publish half the time. So it's up to you, do you think the hassle is worth it in light of this mess?

As promised, a complete copy of messages and conversations I had with Rich, eHow's community manager, about the eHow UK scam and the fact that my posts asking about compensation were being deleted.

This is a direct copy and paste from a PM, so please read starting at the bottom to get the messages in order.

---- Tara Swadley wrote on Sunday Jan 24 2010 at 3:13 PM because he wanted
to ----

I know what I read. You do not want me bringing up the FACT that
you are erroneously deleting things. Got it. Will do.

---- Rich - eHow
Community Manager wrote on Sunday Jan 24 2010 at 3:10 PM because he wanted to
----

To: Tara Swadley
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Your forum post


Now Tara... you know what I meant.

---- Tara Swadley wrote
on Sunday Jan 24 2010 at 2:59 PM because he wanted to ----

To: Rich -
eHow Community Manager
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Your forum post

I'm glad
you at least realize it's fact that you're erroneously deleting posts.

---- Rich - eHow Community Manager wrote on Sunday Jan 24 2010 at 2:51
PM because he wanted to ----

To: Tara Swadley
Subject: Re: Re: Your
forum post


Look Tara, ask the question, but do not bring up the fact
that I'm erroneously deleting posts. You've been with us for some time and you
know I like you being part of the community, however, I have my reasons, and in
my opinion you're creating unnecessary attention. This is my final warning. If
you don't agree, then I'm sorry, but it's part of my job to keep order on the
forums and if I need to put a penalty I will do so. Thank you for your
understanding.



Best,

Rich

---- Tara Swadley
wrote on Sunday Jan 24 2010 at 2:32 PM because he wanted to ----

To:
Rich - eHow Community Manager
Subject: Re: Your forum post

But you
DID delete my post without reason. Whether it was noted or not isn't important.
The fact is you're trying to censor those who want answers. That IS an abuse of
power and it's not damage control. It's stirring the pot.

I was
previously calm about this issue just waiting. That was my first question and it
was still calm. By deleting my calm question you're raising my ire to the same
level as those who were previously attacking you.

---- Rich - eHow
Community Manager wrote on Sunday Jan 24 2010 at 2:25 PM because he wanted to
----

To: Tara Swadley
Subject: Your forum post


Tara,

The forum post you made has been noted and there other posts similar to
what you have sated, but by bringing up the fact that I'm misuing my powers and
deleting forum posts without reason is not necessary and will be deleted. Once
again, please do not do this, or I will have to enforce a penalty against you.
Thank you for your understanding.



Best,

Rich

Rich is very set on silencing me when I want to mention either a lawsuit possibility or when I call him on the fact that he is erroneously deleting some messages (not all, but some that offer questions he - or the eHow legal team - doesn't like).

In my last post about the eHow UK scam I posed some questions about whether writers would see compensation from the misuse of their articles. My thoughts at the time were, no. eHow and eHow staff are going to try and sweep this under the rug and hope that writers drop and forget the money they lost during the whole eHow UK scam.

My thoughts today were confirmed. In order to hurry along the sweeping under the rug, eHow community manager Rich has been deleting posts that ask about compensation for writers, as well as any posts that mention the possibility of a lawsuit.

One of my own posts fell into the deletion. Since that first deletion I've now had five messages deleted and have received a few 'Bad girl. Go sit in the corner.' messages from Rich that I'm sharing all of on this "eHow UK Scam Censoring" post.

Rich, community manager, claims he is only deleting posts which are attacking to other members, eHow staff or are unnecessary to the conversation. That makes sense. No one wants those types of negative vibes floating around in a thread.

But if that's all he is deleting then why was my post calmly asking about compensation for writers deleted? Most likely because I mentioned the fact that Rich's own words could be used in a lawsuit against eHow. eHow wants to sweep away and ignore any mention of lawsuits; obviously this is a very sore spot and that just confirms my previous belief that there were some legal copyright issues to using US content on the UK site without permission.

My next posts all asked why my posts continued to be deleted until finally I received this private message from Rich, the eHow community manager:

Look Tara, ask the question, but do not bring up the fact that I'm erroneously deleting posts. You've been with us for some time and you know I like you being part of the community, however, I have my reasons, and in my opinion you're creating unnecessary attention. This is my final warning. If you don't agree, then I'm sorry, but it's part of my job to keep order on the forums and if I need to put a penalty I will do so. Thank you for your understanding.



Best,

Rich

It's a shame really that eHow's version of 'crowd control' has raised my hackles so much when I was previously fairly calm about this issue. I was fairly removed to my thoughts that I wasn't going to be compensated for the loss of income and while upset about it, I was not even thinking about going a lawsuit route for myself. This censoring though is going too far! People who were cheated by the eHow UK scam have a right to speak and ask questions - especially in a calm manner - and that right is being denied to them!

"...do not bring up the fact that I'm erroneously deleting posts." - A bonus. Rich knows thath is erroneously deleting things and even calls it fact. No, I doubt that's what he meant to say, but Freudian slip, Freudian slip.

eHow is claiming they've fixed all the problems with stolen traffic and earnings on the UK site. Here's Rich, the community manager's, post on the matter.

"Hi eHow Peeps,

As promised, we finally removed all US member articles from the UK site as of yesterday. However, some are still claiming that they are seeing their articles show up on the UK site, which is somewhat correct, but please make note of the URL structure of those articles before jumping to any conclusions. If you click on the US member article on the UK site, you'll see that it will be re-directed to the US version of the article. Our tech team made sure that all traffic will go to your US article and there should be no possibility of traffic going to a UK version of your article. We will need to wait until Google or any other search engines re-index those article pages as well as the UK site map, so once that happens, they shouldn't show up on the site search results as well as search engine results as UK articles. Until then, you may see your articles in the search results as UK articles, but when readers click on the link, it will take them to the US version of your article.

Example:

An article that may show up as this: http://www.ehow.co.uk/how_5099146_write-letters-stop-copyright-infringement.html on the search engines or on eHow UK will be redirected to here: http://www.ehow.com/how_5099146_write-letters-stop-copyright-infringement.html. Basically, any indication of a UK article created by a US member will be re-directed to the US version of that article.

Once the search engines re-index those article pages, you will gradually see your UK articles removed from the search results. Just know that all traffic to your articles from here on out will be going to your US article and won't be going to a UK version of your article.

Thanks!

Best,
The eHow Team"

This is all good and well. It lifts a huge worry off of me and I can now begin to think about publishing again - though I would have liked to start publishing last month before I returned to college - but what is eHow going to do about compensation for the six months they used member created content for free? Well they'll side step that little misadventure and pretend they don't owe anything.

Nevermind that they say they feel it's inappropriate to use our articles anymore without compensating us (wouldn't this imply they feel it's inappropriate to have already used our articles without compensating us?). And if anyone is going for a lawsuit, may I suggest you go small claims and use that as your argument? The company, through Rich their community manager (mouthpiece to the writers) stated they felt it was wrong to use our content without compensation in his first post on the matter.

Just saying. They shot themselves in the foot with that wording. I'm sure there was some legal issue involved with international copyrights in the UK, but I don't know about it. I know what they admitted to though.

More proof that you should stay away from eHow because eHow sucks.

From Community Manager, Rich:

"We’ve noticed the buzz around eHow’s new UK website and specifically the questions of whether WCP participants are paid for their articles shown on our sister website. We appreciate all the comments, as our community is what makes us special, and wanted to clearly address your concerns. At the moment we do not have a system to pay writers for their articles hosted on eHow.co.uk.

We’ve listened to your voices and since we are unable pay WCP participants in the UK, we’ll be removing your articles from eHow’s UK website within the next few weeks. We’ll keep you posted on our progress and thank you for your patience and commitment to eHow.

Best Regards,
The eHow Team"

I wrote about eHow already and warned that it is not the best place to write due to numerous bugs that make the site unusable as well as the general unprofessional-ness of the community managers, but I still ended up saying, if you want to risk it, the money is there.

Apparently, I was lying.

Since November my earnings have been cut by an average of $2 per day. This, according to veterans of online writing, is normal unless you publish a lot of holiday articles. That made sense. Well, come the beginning of January, the CPC on all my topics was back to where it should be and yet my earnings are slowly slipping to be less by $2.50 on average per day.

And today, I made a whopping $1.16 when before November I was averaging $7 and even now I was still averaging $5 a day. Hm. What could possibly be wrong?

Well it seems eHow overstepped its bounds and took every article ever written by its members and placed them on its new sister site, eHow UK. And then they failed to compensate us for it. And when asked if we were being compensated, members were met with vague answers that answered totally different questions or just didn't answer anything at all.

It was announced today, more than five months after the launch of eHow UK and the theft of member articles, that they were 'listening' to us and pulling all USA 'user' articles from their UK site.

It will take them a few weeks to remove them though, so don't look forward to your earnings getting back to normal anytime soon.

Oh, and after they remove them? You'll still have to wait a few weeks for the unusable link - that will actually redirect to another page within the UK site anyway - to clear out of search engine caches. And if you were unable to find your US eHow article on the search engine, you'll have to wait for the unusable link to clear out before the new one will be able to be found.

Good scam eHow. Did you make a lot of money off this little legal stumble? Do you feel good about the way you continue to walk all over and kick your members?

There you have it, more reason not to write for eHow.com.