Jan Verhoeff writes:

Great stats to work from!

I noticed the other day, I’ve had a couple lately that took longer than normal. But, those two seemed to take forever — so I looked up my emails (somebody needs to remind me to delete emails) to see how long it took.

4 days over a weekend!

Yeehaw!!!

EzineArticles is GOOD!

Jan

[Reply]

Chris Ralph writes:

EzineArticles does a good job in getting things checked and reviewed in a timely manner.

There is ANOTHER articles site (and its a well known one) that I submitted articles to in mid May, and they have YET to be reviewed. Now that is bad.

Chris & Co.: Keep up the good work!

Chris Ralph

[Reply]

James Chartrand writes:

To be honest, I don’t mind waiting to have my articles approved because I know that having them posted here is a badge of honor. I appreciate the human effort to maintain high quality going on behind the scenes, and I do business here because of that human aspect. Real people who care what gets posted? Yup, I’ll wait. Happily.

[Reply]

Edward Weiss writes:

As someone who used to write abstacts, I learned how to speed read and find relevant information quickly.

Do you teach editors how to do this or is skimming and skipping not an option for EzineArticles editors?

[Reply]

Christopher M. Knight writes:

Our biggest time hurdle to overcome is training newbie editors on memorizing hundreds of rules — and these rules are divided into mechanics and content.

They skim and usually they zero in on mechanics issues first, then exclusive vs. non-exclusivity checks, then content for substance, does it fit guidelines, etc.

Over time and after each editor handles 10-20k articles by hand, it’s pretty easy to spot the trends as they leap out at ya…

[Reply]

Christina Sponias writes:

I think you could work better and finish faster if you would divide the authors depending on their articles’ quality instead of just considering everyone that is a Platinum member the same way.

You could see which authors usually never have any problem with their articles and have another category for them, so that their articles would be immediately approved and the revisers would have more time to dispense to other authors.

[Reply]

James Chartrand - JCM Enterprises writes:

I agree – three categories of authors.

Hmmm… Palladium? Pewter? Diamond? I could take any of those happily ;)

[Reply]

Christina Sponias writes:

Platinum ‚¬€ For new members ‚¬€ Regular revision

Steel ‚¬€ For not so new members with good articles ‚¬€ Faster revision

Silver ‚¬€ For older members with very good articles ‚¬€ Quick checking

Golden ‚¬€ For older members with excellent articles ‚¬€ Direct publication

[Reply]

Lance Winslow writes:

I am personally a happy camper, sitting here at Starbucks writing articles and know that they will eventually get posted as time permits. It was a Long Three Day Weekend and a short week this week too. Its all good, continued success and a Venti White Rasberry Mocha Frappachino on me (with no-whip). – Lance.

[Reply]

Christopher M. Knight writes:

We already have the next level of memberships mapped out per this April blog entry:
http://blog.EzineArticles.com/2007/04/new-membership-levels-proposed.html

Holding it up from implementation are higher priorities.

[Reply]

Nancy Chadwick writes:

Chris,

I think I posted by mistake in the April comments. I’ll try it again here, without typos. My thoughts:

1. Instead of using precious metals, how about a symbol (eg * for star)? *, **, ***? I’ve always found the gold, platinum totem pole confusing and I suspect others do as well. While it’s tempting to suggest using a scarlet “A” (“AA,” “AAA”), that has different connotations — even to people into baseball and not Hawthorne!

2. I’d be more comfortable with the editors making the call on quality. Feedback in the form of article comments can be too easily manipulated. Imagine the potential for proliferation of “straw” or non-genuine comments from people having some sort of undisclosed relationship with the stated author. The editors could include in their criteria the # of page views and the # of Epubs. The # of URL clicks may be misleading. For example, suppose a reader religiously reads articles of a particular author. Presumably, they’ve already been to the author’s site. Why would they keep clicking the URL? Or readers may choose to print hard copy of the article and read it later instead of being glued to their monitors. They may go to the author’s site after reading the article, but their “click” isn’t going to be recorded by your system (unless they click directly from your site).

3. The scales should be tipped in favor of quality over quantity. The same argument that has been made about short v. long articles could be made here. It’s not how much you say, but rather the “utility” and meat of the article that’s important to the reader. Otherwise, a rating system of authors for editorial review (or for any other purpose) becomes meaningless.

Nancy

[Reply]

James Chartrand - JCM Enterprises writes:

I agree with Nancy’s third point. It seems in your April post that authors who submitted more received a better “star rating” than authors who submitted less but with higher quality.

Huh?

Considering that EzineArticles is all about quality, not quantity, I find that ranking left a sour taste in my mouth. Not all authors have time to spit out a whack of articles, and even though their articles may be better, someone else who writes more gets higher priority.

Actually, quantity should be low on the list, in my opinion. Do we really want to keep bashing the virtual world with redundant information and a slightly different angle each time? Information overload, I’d think.

[Reply]

Nancy Chadwick writes:

James,

Amen on the overload and bashing thing! It’s “word pollution.”

So how do you feel about scarlet A’s or multiple quills?

Nancy

[Reply]

Christina Sponias writes:

I’m sorry, but I guess that you are misunderstanding the words’ meaning.
When we say that an author will be a diamond thanks to good quality and quantity, we are not establishing When this is going to happen.
This is not a marathon.

Each author shall care of course about the quality first of all and when his or her articles will finally reach the necessary amount then they will have this title.
Each one knows how many articles he or she is able to write respecting the best quality standards.

Don’t misunderstand the Ezine’s intention, because on the other hand, we must write a lot.
If you are a real expert you have a lot to say and people want to learn. You also need to promote your business, everything matches. The Ezine encourages you to become more productive since you respect the quality level.

[Reply]

James Chartrand - JCM Enterprises writes:

Well, I’ve had plenty of labels in my life, so one more or less won’t make a difference, I think. Doesn’t matter what symbol or terminology represents the level of writer… A’s, quills, metals, precious stones, whatever; someone’s going to be unhappy somewhere.

I really did like the idea of pewter… Can I be pewter?

[Reply]

Nancy Chadwick writes:

Different people will interpret the same word differently. No getting around that. But rather than get hung up on the label, I’d like to focus on the criteria for each level. I reall like the following excerpt from one of Chris’s posts in the April thread:

***”It may take us some time to debate and attempt to make black and white a very subjective thing that Quality is.

“One person’s idea of quality is hiring a ghostwriter whereas another person’s idea of quality is investing 2-3 hours per article and having 2 people edit it before we see it.

“Unfortunately, we are waging war here in terms of quality because there are too many authors writing low quality articles in crazy volumes and this makes it hard for us to show a user who is reading the article if they are reading the best our membership can offer or an article that just squeeeeeeked by marginally.

“Diamond level represents the utopian ideal EzineArticles expert author to us. Someone who only writes original works, visually presents them in an easy to read format (bullets, numbered lists, and only a tint of bold or italics styles), doesn’t generate user complaints, submits consistently over time, and is easily a genuine certified expert in the topics he or she writes about as evidenced by their website URL’s and bio.”

Maybe there’s a way to work back from the qualities of that lighest level to define the lower levels.

Nancy

[Reply]

Christina Sponias writes:

I think we can easily describe the lower levels because they miss many things.

Their documents are not so clear, their content is not really original, they don’t give to their readers real information, they don’t give them any message, there is nothing special in their work, etc and etc.

[Reply]

Christopher M. Knight writes:

James C.,

Quality without Quantity is not really quality from a depth perspective.

Imagine if major search engines only had a few billion pages in their index because that’s all they could find that was ‘quality’? They would be much less valuable than a search engine with tens of billions of pages indexed.

Yes, QUALITY is more important than QUANTITY; but quality without quantity is marginal.

Example: Author A and B are both identical in their expertise and ability to write articles. Author A submits 100 articles and Author B submits 10 articles. Which one is providing the reader with a greater depth from their expertise? Clearly author A.

I think your assumption is that Author A and B are going to write nearly identical content. Nothing could be further from the truth because we each evaluate business and life uniquely. :-)

[Reply]

James Chartrand writes:

I hear your point, Chris, and that makes sense. Point.

But I do want to mention that I’m not assuming authors A and B are writing nearly identical content. In my experience, a search on a common term returns tons of the same content with only slightly different info in each. Wading through that to find something new that hasn’t been said is tough. On many topics, there is far too much identical or near-identical content, and for various reasons. Information overload.

[Reply]

Christina Sponias writes:

Yes James, but the solution is not to stop writing because already too much was written about certain subjects.

An author always has to find new points to present.
Otherwise, he or she better change subject, focus only in specific details, etc.

[Reply]

James Chartrand - JCM Enterprises writes:

*laughs* Now where’d I say that stopping to write is a solution!

All I’m saying is that, to me, quality means more than quantity – when comparing the two. In the virtual world sense, as Chris pointed out, I concede that quality without quantity doesn’t do anyone much good.

Sheesh, I didn’t say stop writing. I’d be out of a job!

[Reply]

James Chartrand - JCM Enterprises writes:

To add to that last point, what I’m stating is that I believe that EzineArticles, when taking the whole of all authors here, has the quantity. It should focus on the quality. Then that’s the best of both worlds, non?

[Reply]

Christina Sponias writes:

I don’t think the Ezine focus on the quantity just because it encourages the authors to submit many articles.

The Ezine wants many excellent articles.

[Reply]

Nancy Chadwick writes:

Chris,

To take your example one step farther, suppose the 100 articles written by Author A are in 100 diverse subject areas, while the 10 articles by Author B are on 1 subject. If Author A isn’t a “genuine certified expert in the topics he or she writes about as evidenced by their website URL’s and bio”, wouldn’t you agree that it is Author B, not Author A, who is providing the reader with more quality (i.e., more expertise intensive) articles?

Nancy

[Reply]

Christina Sponias writes:

Nancy, if I may give you an answer to your question, since we are discussing here and each one gives his or her opinion, I believe that it’s more than obvious that the Ezine has to care about the amount of articles each author sends each month because it needs many articles.

The Ezine’s ideal is to have many excellent authors that send super articles everyday.
The authors’ ideal is to have their articles immediately approved and in a very good position, besides promotion from the Ezine and everything else they can have that may help them sell their services or products.

For the Ezine both authors A and B are valuable, each one for what he or she provides. The Ezine wants good and fresh material everyday. It needs it to survive, because it cannot be in the top with only a few super articles.

Author A may be an expert on fields like mine: psychology, depression, craziness, society, philosophy, relationships, etc and he may be able to write 100 super articles for several different categories because they are all related.
Or, author A is an excellent writer, able to write excellent articles on any subject.

Author B is a specialist. His or her articles are precious! The Ezine of course loves his articles, but it wants to see precious articles everyday.

Author A gives bread to the Ezine. Author B gives it butter and honey.

[Reply]

Jan Verhoeff writes:

I know there are those who believe that a person can only be an expert in one area. That assumtion may take you far in life, but in reality, most people have several areas of expertise in life.

After having grown up with parents who worked on appliances, operated an appliance business and did a great deal of electrical and plumbing, I managed to ace those fields of an aptitude test. Why? Because I worked constantly with my parents in those ares.

I later went into journalism, specializing in writing design articles for a home design magazine. I love the field of design and I’m good at it. I still write a lot of design articles, but I would not call that my specialty.

During that time frame I married and my now EX wanted to run a construction business, I had the know how, he just wanted to pound nails. I have a strong background in construction, can design a home with engineering specs and I know the difference between builder prints and electrical layouts or schematics and I can read both.

I know business start ups from beginning to end, because that’s been my personal specialty. I love helping people start business and build them to success.

I’ve owned rental properties, managed them, built and sold them.

I’ve spent three months of the past 15 years doing taxes, and I know the tax code inside out on small business tax law. I’d have to say I’m an expert in all these areas and I can write an article on any of these fields that would definitely keep you interested and benefit you to read.

The saying “Don’t judge a book by its cover!” comes to mind here… Perhaps the definition of expert needs to be considered a bit.

[Reply]

Nancy Chadwick writes:

Christina,

I love your bread v. butter & honey analogy! I wasn’t suggesting that quality totally overshadow quantity. Chris’s definition of the diamond level and other post (above) would seem to indicate that more weight should be given to quality than to quantity.

Jan,

I agree with you that how “expert” is defined is very important. In the Author A-Author B example I posted above, I was essentially defining expert as someone with substantial experience in a specific area. That doesn’t necessarily mean the author has to currently be working in that area. Expertise, like everything else, is accumulated over time and you’ve had the opportunity to work in diverse subject matter areas.

Expertise on a subject should not be presumed just because an author writes an article on that subject (or for that matter, writes 10 articles). The knowledge or expertise the author has on a given subject should be evident from the article he/she writes, backed up by information in the author’s biographical data on the author’s site. Establishing credibility is key but keeping credibility, I feel, is even more important.

Nancy

[Reply]

James Chartrand - JCM Enterprises writes:

Jan – you applying for a job? ;) Nice resume!

I agree that defining “expert” needs to be handled very carefully. I’ve learned that experience is often as good as or better than education (is not experience education?) I think, though, that the articles written should speak for themselves. Are they accurate? Do they bring new material and ideas to light? Do they discuss problems and solutions? A hack in any area is easily spotted.

Taking “expertise” from a person’s bio is touchy. I’m a writer, hence, I write from an expert’s perception on many topics. But I’m by no means an expert on those topics. My bio, therefore, won’t claim stonemasonry as my expertise, but my stonemasonry articles might be rocket science. My credentials may not list off five schools and degrees, but my experience may far outweight any book learning.

For quality, yeah, I see the points being tossed around. We’re not defining quality per se but rather EA’s definition of quality, which involves more factors than simply the quality of info or writing. It’s a business, after all.

[Reply]

Nancy Chadwick writes:

James,

I define experience as information or expertise gained from actually applying what is taught in a classroom. If one of your stated areas of expertise is as a writer, then I would think that somewhere in the “about me” section on your site there would be data substantiating your expert status as a writer.

People in certain professions and areas of expertise are required to be licensed by government. So in those situations, I would think that the author would have to have an active license in that area or profession. Of course, a license does not, of itself, imply competence, but only that the person has complied with the governmental licensing requirements.

Following through on your stonemasonry example, would you agree then that someone who hasn’t acquired expertise (past or present) in stonemasonry shouldn’t be portraying themselves as having that expertise?

Nancy

[Reply]

Jan Verhoeff writes:

Ya hirin’?

I’m from a small town and it’s fairly common in small towns for people to either have one job for a life time or many different jobs. When you own a business, unless it’s a main street front, your business my find a successful niche and you may be able to maintain that niche, or the economy may shift and you’ll be looking for something different.

Since my primary career is writer, I have the ability to research and write almost any topic with solid knowledge. But the point is, when we start pigeon holing people’s expert niches, we may be missing a lot of expert advice from folks who just learned the hard way.

As for education, I have a few degrees too and they’re even more varied than my experience.

Need a haircut? (Pinky Tuscadero was HOT when I was in high school.)

Jan

[Reply]

James Chartrand - JCM Enterprises writes:

I disagree with a lot of that wholeheartedly. There are many successful entrepreneurs in the world who have no formal education whatsoever – and yet they are experts. Learning in a classroom means you have been mentored through a process and taught something. Does that mean the person who picks up a book and learns on his or her own time hasn’t learned anything?

In Canada, specifically in Quebec where the Construction Commission of Quebec licenses specialized contractors and has the most rigid requirements of standards of the whole country, if a person can prove that he or she has acquired a number of hours *equivalent* to classroom learning and can pass all tests and exams required of the classroom-taught student, the person is awarded the licenses.

There are many, many people who never finished high school, Nancy. Discrediting what they have learned or their areas of expertise because they have not sat and dozed through lectures or read a specific textbook some university prefers is discriminatory. Only the elite, huh?

I do agree many professions require licenses and certification of expertise. I wouldn’t want a doctor who learned on the fly… and yet, how did doctors ever learn before universities? Hmm… through experience.

So, no. I rarely look at a person’s pedigree, as it doesn’t really mean that much. I look at what the individual knows, can do, has learned, and the results of his or her work.

Also, remember that the virtual world has now opened up a wealth of opportunity for people to scam through their education. Does that degree really mean the student attended class? Or did the student hire others to do the dirty work? Hm.

(How do we always end up off on these cool tangents? Wasn’t the topic about rate of approval at EA?)

[Reply]

Nancy Chadwick writes:

James,

I think you’ve totally misunderstood my post, not to mention overreacted! Where did all of this come from? Jeez.

I did NOT say that hands’-on experience was to be discounted or that people who didn’t finish high school should be discredited. I did NOT say that one couldn’t be an expert in a field without having degrees.

Perhaps I should have defined “classroom learning” more clearly — i.e., receiving information or instruction from a source (person, book). Learning by doing is just that. No help from any source and lots of trial and error.

This is really ironic because I happen to believe that hands-on experience beats paper credentials in many types of situations. In the US, licensing standards for various professions or occupations have evolved and changed over time. As I said in my last post, having the license was proof that the person complied with the governmental requirements, not necessarily that the person was competent. I’ve met quite a few people licensed in their respective professions who didn’t know squat. I’m sure you have, too.

I also don’t approve of students cheating their way through school by hiring others to “do the dirty work” for them. If you recall, I’m not in favor of anyone doing that.

Nancy

[Reply]

Christina Sponias writes:

If you are a writer and you write something about any matter, you have to write as an expert. You cannot write as an amateur. It doesn’t matter if you know the whole subject in dept, since you know very well what you are writing about.

Writers have plasticity. They can write several articles about several different subjects like experts, without being true experts. They only need to be true writers.

[Reply]

James Chartrand writes:

Nancy: I was responding to this statement: “I define experience as information or expertise gained from actually applying what is taught in a classroom.” No overreaction, just discussion.

Jan: Whip me over your contact info. You never know when I might need another writer ;)

Christina: Yes. You said it.

Chris: I wonder if you ever read our posts, groan, shake your head, and think, “What have I gotten myself into?” ;)

[Reply]

Nancy Chadwick writes:

James,

The operative word in my statement is “applying.” That (to me) means doing something with the information, not just receiving the information. Call it what you want, but your prior post made some giant leaps from points that simply didn’t exist with sarcasm that wasn’t warranted.

Chris provided a link near the beginning of this thread (titled “Article Review Status”) to the levels of authors this site has been considering. That material included suggested criteria for these levels (quantity, quality, “expertness”, etc.)–issues likely to be tossed around every which way by responders. I don’t know Chris, but having read many of his blog posts, I have a feeling that he enjoys triggering the exchange and discussion of ideas. And perhaps he enjoys it more when the participants disagree, respectfully, with each other.

Nancy

[Reply]

James Chartrand writes:

Nancy, there was no intention of sarcasm in my post. Never has been, never will be. I tend to speak plainly and discuss openly, but always with good feelings. If I interject anything, it’s meant in a joking manner and never in a sarcastic one. Sorry if I upset you. Debate happens, doesn’t mean people are out to hurt each other. Disagreements happen as well, but disagreeing and explaining a point of view can be perceived (often) as confrontation and conflict, which it isn’t. We all read tones into text that may or may not be true and we all try to perceive the expression of what we can’t see. Again, it wasn’t my intention to upset you, and I wasn’t attempting any sarcasm.

[Reply]

Christina Sponias writes:

Each one here has different points of view; this is good, otherwise we would not discuss anything. Everyone would simply agree with Chris without questioning anything.

By the way, I would like to know which will be the benefits of being a diamond.
Will our articles be immediately published?
Will they have a better position?
We didn’t talk about that.

[Reply]

Christopher M. Knight writes:

Yes, I enjoy it when my posts generate respectful passionate debate.

This blog is better feedback and vetting of author-centric issues than any board of directors we could ever pull together…

[Reply]

Christina Sponias writes:

Hello everyone! I just saw in ryze.com that Platinum is Higher than Gold membership.
So, we have to study before we decide how we are going to prepare our classifications!

Perhaps Nancy’s proposition is better. We can divide the Platinum members’ classification with stars or do something like:

Platinum – Basic

Platinum – Super

Platinum – Excellent

Diamond – Perfect

What do you think?

[Reply]

James Chartrand writes:

I think that by dividing similar classification further will create confusion. Net users tend towork quickly and don’t pay much attention, so they may only notice “platinum” and not their specific category of “basic, super excellent”.

Better to keep classes distinct and easily recognizable. (and yes, platinum is more valuable than gold.) Stars work too, or quills. Whatever. Does it matter what the label is?

[Reply]

James Chartrand writes:

And I have to ask. It’s been niggling at me for a week now. Christina, I get the distinct impression that you work here at EzineArticles. That true?

[Reply]

Christina Sponias writes:

Hi James!

Yes, I do work for EzineArticles, without payment. I love this Ezine and I adore article writing. My articles are going to be many here. I’m almost the top writer on Depression. I intent to be the top writer in 5 categories at least.

And I always help people in all matters, giving psychological support or help with their daily problems, whatever.

I want to see EzineArticles always in the top, because this Ezine is basic for my business since I’m a writer and a psychologist, so I write well and I have what to say. That’s why my articles have a very good ranking on Google and Yahoo.

I have to give support to the Ezine that gives me such high position in the Internet while I’m a newbie. And I want to see each author writing very good articles here, where my articles are published. It’s sad to read poor articles near good ones! The reader has a totally different impression when he or she sees these differences.

And I feel I have the obligation to help Chris, because if he didn’t invite me to comment his article I would delay who knows how long to understand how much I could do through article writing… He made me awake up and see all the possibilities I had.

For all these reasons and many more, I love EzineArticles and I give it my support!

[Reply]

James Chartrand writes:

I’m more confused than I was before lol – you write and submit articles to EzineArticles or you actively work behind the scenes as a volunteer member of EzineArticles in their editing team or other? Difference, there. I write and submit articles to EzineArticles myself – I don’t consider myself as working for EzineArticles, though.

[Reply]

Christina Sponias writes:

I thought that with everything I said it became obvious that everything I do for the Ezine is done for gratitude.

Whish I had time to do more that just submit my articles here and participate of the discussions in this blog.

[Reply]

Arthur Levine writes:

Hi, the problem with these 3 to 4 day reviews is that other operations are turning around within 24 hours or less and they show up on google ahead of us. I normally post to EzineArticles first, but it doesn’t make any difference any more. Ezine publishers know what is going on and they will get their articles wherever they can get it first.

Regards,

Arthur

[Reply]

Lance Winslow writes:

I see things have really sped up there, plus we now have two dozen more new categories to write in to help us find the perfect niche, impressive amount of work that all’y’all have done there. Keep up the great work. – Lance

[Reply]