Maureen writes:

Well that only makes sense because it would mean the intention wasn’t to write an article. It would mean that the only intention was to promote oneself in a free public domain.

The purpose of EzineArticles.com, as I understand it, is to share what you know and let what you know showcase your expertise. Having a resource box, that is bigger than the article, suggests to me that the person might be better off paying to be placed on a referral site or just have their own blog to do as they pleased.

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Kathy Ostman-Magnusen writes:

Makes sense.

While on the subject of “soft rejected” articles, I gotta say that I really do appreciate the patience of EA’s staff with me on occasion. Wonderful service and fantastic attention to detail as always.

Thank you to all and please forgive my own expressions of impatience a couple times, when parameters were not clear to me.

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Jim Kesel writes:

EzineArticles has way to many rules. 4 years ago it was a lot simpler to publish. I must say that we have never violated this rule and that is probably why we did not know of its existence.

Never the less your efforts to get rid of spammers and poor content has created a mess when it comes to common sense rules. You need to go back to KISS or “keep it simple stupid”. All of which would allow your editors to do a better job.

However we do appreciate the blog so that we can at least try to keep up with all the many rules and rule changes.

That being said EzineArticles is still one of the best places to publish any article on the net.

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Shirley Bass writes:

Make total sense to me. Get to the point quickly!

Not too many people want to hear about you. It’s all about what you can do for them.

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Chinmay Chakravarty writes:

We have saying of ‘a seed being bigger than the vegetable or fruit’ which makes it totally unpalatable.

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Shirley Bass writes:

Cool saying Chinmay and wise!

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Kevin Dervin writes:

I’m actually having trouble picturing how in the world someone could end up with a larger resource box than the article itself.

Sounds like there wasn’t anything particularly interesting or useful in the body of the article itself. It sort of goes right along with some of the core principles of marketing that we teach in the Marketing Action Club. Keep the focus on your clients and prospects and what’s most important to them. Talking about you too early and too often is like spraying client repellent.

Pretty much the same rule for article marketing. Keep the focus on what’s important to the target reading audience. If you think that’s you, then you’re sadly mistaken.

Unfortunately, people do these kind of crazy things which lead to more rules (which drives people like Jim crazy). We may not love so many rules, but I sure appreciate EzineArticles.com continuing efforts to provide quality and keep the rif-raf out.

All my Best!
Kevin

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Christopher M. Knight writes:

Kevin,

Yeah, we had to create this stupid rule because all kinds of authors continually test us… to see how far we’ll let them self-promote.

When they found they couldn’t expand their resource beyond 15% of the word count of the article body; they decided to expand the vertical line count… Very similar to one of those big fishes that are 2 feet wide by 2 inches thick (meaning, all show and little go.).

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Lance Winslow writes:

Ha ha ha, this is very funny. Well, I guess you cannot blame them for trying! That’s a good one. Ha ha ha.

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Kathy Ostman-Magnusen writes:

This was taken from your website:

“Author Resource Box”
Total number of words that ‘can’ be used? 300
No mention of your 15% Rule

“Submit an Article”
Article Body, Word Count required to submit an article?
250 – 5000
No mention of your 15% Rule

So I guess that I missed the small print.

250 words is 250 words, whether used in a poem, causing words to be vertical, or an article posted horizontal. I write a lot of poetry and I am not about to write it horizontal, should that be a ‘new’ requirement. There was no intention on my part to be devious,greedy, all show & little go, or add to the ‘rif raf’, I simply tried to follow what I thought were the parameters supplied. No, I don’t pour over your rules list to see what might have been added lately. Yes, I post articles to promote myself.. da! Yet, I have never used the full amount of words available (?) in my Resource Box. I am a rule follower, I have no problem with that, I just have to know what the rules are.
Around a year ago, perhaps more Chris, ‘you’ made comment on my “Resource Box” that is was well done. I took your word at that. I was simply not ‘aware’ of this 15% limitation rule. I have been posting articles and poems on EzineArticles since January of ’06, so no, I don’t review your rules to see if they have changed or been added to, I rely on the obvious pages, being the Author Resource Box and Submit an Article page.

Am I offended by this? Yes, yes I am. Not because of the rule itself, but because of the comments thereafter and the setting up of them.

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Geoff writes:

The problem is that if someone writes a lot in their resource box the article is less likely to be used by others. That only serves to hinder getting their links seen elsewhere on the `net.

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Christopher M. Knight writes:

Kathy,

Where do we state you can only use 300 words in your resource box? I’m not aware of any rule like that.

The 15% rule is not mentioned because it’s not a rule. It’s an internal guideline.

You were not the example used in the original article that inspired this blog entry.

In fact, I just eyeballed your most recent article and the resource box looks perfect to me.

There are at least a hundred internal guidelines that we don’t publish ON PURPOSE because it would lead to more gaming of the system.

You don’t game the system as far as I can tell, so this blog issue doesn’t even impact you.

It only impacts those who game our system….which again, is not you.

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Kathy Ostman-Magnusen writes:

Chris,

“Where do we state you can only use 300 words in your resource box?”

If you go to where one posts on their “Resource Box” there is a counter of sorts, just like where you post your articles, keywords or whatever. The counter shows 300.

I just ‘redid’ my Resource Box to fit the rule. So it was larger, but I never had it that way because I was trying to be greedy. When a person fills out an application for a job, they should always take advantage of the space.. that is what I felt like I was doing. I get it though.. I do.

So you were not thinking of me? OK then.. I feel better.

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Christopher M. Knight writes:

Kathy,

Did you have an article with:

The article body was 23 lines long.
The resource box was 25 lines long.

If so, then it would only have been a coincidence. ;-)

More bluntly: I’ve already said it wasn’t you…and it wasn’t.

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Lovie writes:

Good deal…totally understand.

Thanks

lovie

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