p.s. My 14 year old daughter read one of his hubs about pajamas and died laughing over his horrible grammar, and he considers himself a professional writer?

Also welcome to the other Hubbers who have come here and continue to come here. It’s great to see you and I hope you’ll come back often.

You gave us all a good lesson as to handle this type of situation. I know you were afraid of losing readers through this but I think the opposite is going to happen.

Good for you for remaining classy.

Anon – thanks for your offer but I’m not in need of legal advice at this time. I’ve put this hateful episode behind me and hope you’ll do the same. The only reason it’s staying alive is because of all the people who are helping to keep it alive.

So here’s is my final word on it. I said everything I have to say. Period. It’s self explanatory. I appreciate all the love, but would appreciate it more if you don’t feed the fire.

The end.

As my mother always told me, “You can’t please all the people all the time.”

Keep up the good work, Deb and Jodee!

As an attorney, I’d love to take this on pro bono. This statement alone gives you a case;

“After years of educating and informing her writing community on how to avoid online writing scams, Deborah Ng set up one of the biggest sucker traps in the freelance writing market. ”

Unless he can absolutely prove you set up a sucker trap he can be sued, and sued good. I’m also emailing you my details and the details as to how this blogger set himself up for a lawsuit. I look forward to hearing from you.

Made me grin in slight satisfaction. Laughing inside.

I also want to tell you I’m sorry for the hassle and headache you’re going through regarding some rather juvenile antics from some people (Hal, the poll-hijakers, and others). Sadly, even the internet is the playground of junior high behavior because some people just never grow up.

I’m confident you have far more grateful readers of FWJ than immature ones. Thank you again, and try not to let the minority get to you. Hope you enjoyed your family movie night!

By doing this, Licino does nothing but lessen the impact of his own authority on his own seemingly niche topic of writing scams. Licino has shown that he lacks the good sense as well as the basic skills to follow through with adequate research before writing.

The prize in this contest is indeed a job, and in order to “win” (or get the job) freelancers must produce content, that will be published, for free. Still, you simply cannot enter a writing contest without actually writing. There are freelancers who do enter writing contests, and those that never would consider it. Obviously participants here made the choice, after learning the facts, to enter the contest on their own accord.

Is this, as Licino suggests, a scam or a sucker trap? I would say it definitely is not.

Every freelancer who was interested in entering this contest had the same and equal opportunity to not participate after learning that writing unique content was the contest entry. It doesn’t seem to me that any participant has been cheated, defrauded, suckered, or mislead under false pretense.

With all information presented, this is simply a contest and those who agreed to the contest rules participated, and those to did not agree, simply moved on to read a different blog post.

You provide a good service here, and the contest was a fun idea. What a shame that people have gotten their noses out of joint over it.

From a post about how to get the good pageviews on hubpages:

The art of the interview seems to be fading away. Most online commentators are too busy telling the world what they think of whatever is happening, that at no point in time do they bother to pick up the phone and ask a real expert for their immensely more valuable input onto the issues. Don’t let your ego get in the way. No matter what subject matter you think you’re an expert in, you can easily find someone who knows much more than you ever will. Seek out those people, interview them, place the fair and equitable report from the interview on your Hub and enjoy the avalanche of page views.

Not for nothing, Hal, but I think Deb’s still waiting on your call.

Anyway, as I said. I defended myself above and won’t get into any back and forth with the author. I’m pretty much done with this silliness as it speaks for itself.

Once again, I thank everyone for their support and hope you’re as excited as we are to see who wins FWJ Idol.

If he had raised his concerns about the contest in an appropriate way, then I would have been more inclined to listen. But the entire way he went about it, from that crazy graphic to his use of wording like scam and fraud reeked of sensationalism and frankly, bad writing.

Anyway, this is nothing anyone above me hasn’t said, but I just wanted to show my support. Deb and Jodee, this is a fantastic site and one of the only sites that I consistantly visit every day.

I always feel as if my day hasn’t truly started unless I’ve checked for jobs at FWJ!

Now. Let’s say Hal is indeed a rare writer who gets paid by the post for hubpages. There are many who don’t according to what I’m reading online. Does this mean that *gasp* Hal is supporting a website that doesn’t pay its writers? Revenue is never a sure thing and by Hal’s own admission, writers shoulnd’t write for the glory. Hubpages couldn’t be a form of exploitation could it?

Some of these articles say hubbers earn a percentage of the advertising. Not even the whole thing!

Let’s go to the videotape:

http://www.ehow.com/how_2320417_hubs-hubpages.html – The comments are interesting. Especiall from the writers who say they haven’t really made anything.

http://www.real-work-at-home.co.uk/101WorkIdeas/HomeBusinessLists/HubPages/tabid/150/Default.aspx

http://aharddayswrite.blogspot.com/2007/08/associated-content-vs-hubpages.html

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/225070/what_is_hubpages_a_guide_to_a_usergenerated.html

http://ezinearticles.com/?How-to-Make-Money-Online-Using-Hubpages&id=1169395

http://www.printnpost.com/articles/2258/1/Make-Money-With-HubPages-Earn-Income-4-Different-Ways/Page1.html

There are plenty more of these links out there if anyone else wants to take a look. The point is income isn’t guaranteed. For Hal to get up on his high horse to complain about this makes him a hypocrite.

I thought the hub was so unfair I gave it the thumbs down and flagged it so hubpages editors will review the post. Nothing may come of it, but I think the people in charge need to see for themselves how this man stirs the pot in exchange for numbers. He has another post where he takes a shot at Deb too – about something different but he threw Deb’s name in there and some mean things just for the sake of doing it.

If you look at his posts, many people tell him he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He likes to create controversy and stir the pot. That’s how he gets his readers. Real writers know how to draw in a crowd with good writing not biased, innacurate hate wrting.

Sorry Deb but no publication worth its weight in salt would allow this kind of tabloid (OMG!!) journalism. I’m surprised this is what hub pages wants.