Thanks Jim Logan

Ok, I am going to say something polite about Helium---hey, it could happen!

In the recent discussion about the new publishing rights policy, Jim Logan realized that the only way to keep up on the posts was to answer each person's questions and concerns directly in their own post (by using the edit function). And I would like to thank him for that---it made finding the answer to my concern quick and easy. It also made it easier to find his responses to other people's questions (some of which I was interested in).

(My concerns were about piracy and teaser paragraphs.)

Thank you Jim Logan for your prompt attention to my concerns. Even when I am upset with Helium, you prove to be professional. Thanks.

Helium response to the last Google update

In the last Google update, the search engine perimeters were changed to punish duplicate content. It was meant to down-rank the pages which were just reprinting what other people wrote. Unfortunately, I immediately realized that it was going to penalize everyone (if your work is pirated, then it too is a duplicate---even if it was the original). I also realized that this was going to mean a big change in the online writing envirnoment.

And today, I saw my first indication that what that change in the online writing envirnoment was going to look exactly the way I thought it would.

Helium, as of  March 24th, is now going to take exclusive online rights for one year on all new articles submitted. As always when Helium does a change, there are mixed reactions.

In my case, the reaction was "Well, thanks to Helium making me spend any time I have to write [for them] in maintaining my rating star, and tying any incentive earnings to having a writing star which I do not have, so lots of rewrites [leapfrogs] would be needed...it was going to be a long time before I ever write a new article for the site, and now it is going to be even longer."

Sure, one can submit an article to a ebook and/or print publication...oh wait, most of them have a web process. And there lays the rub. Welcome to the new ugly online writing envirnoment.

Thanks to Google, everyone is going to move towards requiring that all content submitted is exclusive. Soon, we will never be able to reprint any piece of work. Everything that we publish will have to be original content.

But we still going to be penaltized for writing duplicate material because of people who copy other people's material. The front page (the latest seven entries) of one of my other blogs is being posted elsewhere on the web...and I have not been able to do a damn thing about it.

And other thing, I like to occasionally use a paragraph from an article to advertise it...opps, I guess I can't do that anymore either. Welcome to the wasteland...hope that you didn't plan on doing this type of writing for a living.

QoD Elbert Hubbard on self-promotion

Everyone should advertise while they are alive. The man who does not advertise is a dead one, whether he knows it or not. Life is too short for you to hide yourself away mantled in your own modesty.
   ---Elbert Hubbard