2 Ridiculous Rejections, What is Going On?

[esemmel]

In submitting articles to get accepted by constant content i have had the following 2 things happen.

1) One article after a couple of revisions, was rejected because it was in the first person.
The problem is, the request that the article answered specified a first person account.

I know constant content doesn't want first person accounts, but even the guidelines stated that the exception is if there is a request for it.

So I did what the request wanted and was rejected, with the addition of "This article can no longer be re-submitted.

2) I took one of my own articles I had on my blog and chopped it down so it was tighter and more to what I thought constant content would like. A tight focused article. So what happens?

I get rejected for plagiarism. And my account is suspended.

Plagiarism???? I wrote the thing in the first place.

I plagiarised myself?

I'd like some feedback and hopefully someone in some position of authority at constant content to address these 2 issues.

I'd love some comment

[Evelyn]

The plagiarism one is very hard--your byline on the other site must match your name on Constant Content exactly. If someone stole your article from the other site and published it without your byline, it would appear that you plagiarized it even though you're the original author. The Internet sucks that way. Before coming to C-C many of my articles were stolen and published without my byline so I have to be very careful submitting previously published material.

I'm sorry you're having a bad experience with C-C, and wish you the best of luck. If you can prove the article wasn't plagiarized by providing a site with your exact Constant Content name attached to the article, it might be worth a try to email support. See what you think to decide if it's worth it.

[esemmel]

When I signed up to constant content I used a pen name.

The fact that one is presumed guilty is really bad policy. Your story backs that up as well. If you have to be careful to be "caught" by constant content because other people stole your articles then the thieves win. You get penalized by constant content because someone else plagiarised you?

Come on...does that strike anyone as a good policy?

The fact that I am presumed guilty and then suspended without them asking any questions or my side is frankly, just wrong. I know exactly where the other, longer winded version, of the article is, because it's on my blog.

And, the fact that my first problem happened at all just seems to give a sense that there is not much effort done by the staff to get a full story. Something like this...

A review takes place:
Let's see, Woops, first person writing, reject...next!

Hmm, a very similarly titled article exists elsewhere online, must be a plagiarist, account suspended...next!

How about something like, "Let me contact them and tell them what we found and hear their rebuttal to our question and concern."

What this is, in effect, is "soup nazi" policy. Yes, taken from the Seinfeld episode.

The owner of the shop found it was more productive to get more customers who could follow strict rules, and be in and out rather than have to cater to the few customers who presented a little more effort and time investment to satisfy them.

C-C obviously feels it is more profitable to not have to take any time to deal with the issue. If they lose innocent people, so be it. Not having to spend the time to deal with the issue, and just making the quick suspension saves them the cost of customer service help.

Writers in, writers out. Soup Nazi policy.

[4rumid]

CC has a lot of ins and outs that take some time to learn. But both the issues you mention are covered, either in the instructions to authors or in the forums.

Re: your problem with the "plagiarized" article, see this section from the author FAQs:

"I submitted an article to sell for usage rights only. My articles was rejected for originality, but I am the original author of the content.
We can only accept articles that are able to be verified as original to the author. If you choose to submit content published elsewhere by you, please submit articles that are clearly credited to you with your name or the pen name you use on Constant Content. Articles that cannot be verified as original to the author cannot be accepted. If there is no name on the original publication, if the article is credited with a name that does not match your given or chosen name, or if the author's name is not easily located on the page of original publication, the article will be rejected. Do not include location of previous publication anywhere in your submission. Please note: When you submit an article that has been published elsewhere, you may ask usage rights ONLY for the article."

As for the first-person problem, if a customer requests first person, you can definitely submit an article written in the first person. But it's important to put a note to Ed (the pseudonym of the CC editor) in the short summary section indicating that first person was requested by the customer.

I can definitely understand your frustration with these rejections, but you have to realize that there's only one editor who reviews writer submissions. There simply isn't time to check on whether exceptions to the rules are appropriate every time they appear in a submission. That's why you need to help Ed out with a note. As for the suspension, are you sure it was for the plagiarism issue? Other people have run into the same problem, and haven't been immediately suspended. Maybe Ed will weigh in on what happened.

[lgonzalez12811]

Perhaps CC could hire a small staff of one or two people to be "on call" and research these events as they occur. This would lighten the load the editor has to carry and will give innocent authors a chance to prove themselves. Although I love writing and submitting articles here at CC I constantly fear that I'm going to do something wrong that will get me suspended. Not that I'm doing anything wrong but sometimes I can over look something and then I'm sweating it until I get accepted or declined.

Also, if CC wants to shorten the turn-around time of an article thereby increasing possible sales and money then perhaps more editors should be considered.

[Antonia]

Shorter turnaround time does not necessarily equal more sales. Many articles sell weeks or months--even years--after first appearing on the site. Yes, it's frustrating to get a rejection, but in the long run, a few days really doesn't make a difference to whether the article eventually sells or not.

In response to:

"The owner of the shop found it was more productive to get more customers who could follow strict rules, and be in and out rather than have to cater to the few customers who presented a little more effort and time investment to satisfy them."

Authors are not CC's customers. Buyers are the customers. Of course CC wants to make this a pleasant (and lucrative!) place for authors, but complaints that CC should do this or that because it would make authors happier strike me as missing the point. Think of each article as a job interview. If you don't get hired, do you call up the HR department and say, "But I tried my best...I'm innocent! Can't you give me a break?"

We are the cooks in the soup nazi's kitchen. Not the eaters of soup. Since we get paid for what we do, the burden is on us to meet the standards. Just keep writing and submitting, and the occasional rejection will lose its power.

[esemmel]

Think of each article as a job interview. If you don't get hired, do you call up the HR department and say, "But I tried my best...I'm innocent! Can't you give me a break?"

We are the cooks in the soup nazi's kitchen. Not the eaters of soup. Since we get paid for what we do, the burden is on us to meet the standards. Just keep writing and submitting, and the occasional rejection will lose its power.

If they told me I wasn't hired because of a crime I didn't commit then yes, I would say I'm innocent.

I can't keep submitting because my account was suspended.

Yes, it was an immediate suspension. I wrote 3 articles and never had one accepted. One was the "first-person" article I wrote and another was where I plagiarised myself.

I didn't know that all submissions go through one person. Which makes my above posts even more true. It is much more efficient to assume guilt and move on then to spend time looking into the matter. One person can only handle so much. If they had to look into every case, articles acceptance would be backed up for weeks.

I understand that's the policy, but it doesn't mean it's a good policy.

How is someone supposed to know to leave a note to Ed if there is a request for first person?

[Lysis]

New users should probably stick to submitting original, unique content and avoid usage rights from blog stuff. I'm sure Ed sees a lot of plagiarism. After spending hours dealing with sneaky content thieves and webmasters who just scrape content, I see people do it alllllll the time. I imagine he sees it a lot too.

[ecdoran]

When I signed up to constant content I used a pen name.

The fact that one is presumed guilty is really bad policy. Your story backs that up as well. If you have to be careful to be "caught" by constant content because other people stole your articles then the thieves win. You get penalized by constant content because someone else plagiarised you?

Come on...does that strike anyone as a good policy?

It does, yeah. You are looking at the situation form the perspective of someone who is attempting to use their own material legitimately. Look at it from the perspective of a 'thief' trying to use your material. I could easily rip anything I find on the interweb, including your articles, claim them as my own but under a different penname, and sell them on CC. Fortunately for you, CC knows this and has stringent guidelines in place to ensure that I don't do that to you -- profit off your hardwork. In my opinion, CC is simply ensuring that customers get what they pay for and original authors are compensated for their time while those thieves you mentioned are punished.

Unfortunately for you, it appeared as if you plagiarized work that was yours, but who is to verify that? As a thief, couldn't I easily send a note to Ed saying that my work is my own, I just happened to post under 15 different names? There's no way to know for sure so its best to write original content for CC. If you've done one article already, it shouldn't take that much time to write a similar article that doesn't plagiarize anything, even yourself under a different name.

[esemmel]

When I signed up to constant content I used a pen name.

The fact that one is presumed guilty is really bad policy. Your story backs that up as well. If you have to be careful to be "caught" by constant content because other people stole your articles then the thieves win. You get penalized by constant content because someone else plagiarised you?

Come on...does that strike anyone as a good policy?

It does, yeah. You are looking at the situation form the perspective of someone who is attempting to use their own material legitimately. Look at it from the perspective of a 'thief' trying to use your material. I could easily rip anything I find on the interweb, including your articles, claim them as my own but under a different penname, and sell them on CC. Fortunately for you, CC knows this and has stringent guidelines in place to ensure that I don't do that to you -- profit off your hardwork. In my opinion, CC is simply ensuring that customers get what they pay for and original authors are compensated for their time while those thieves you mentioned are punished.

Unfortunately for you, it appeared as if you plagiarized work that was yours, but who is to verify that? As a thief, couldn't I easily send a note to Ed saying that my work is my own, I just happened to post under 15 different names? There's no way to know for sure so its best to write original content for CC. If you've done one article already, it shouldn't take that much time to write a similar article that doesn't plagiarize anything, even yourself under a different name.

The problem is not so much the rejection. The problem is the immediate suspension without first checking into things.

The situation could be proven easily because I have access to the email accounts for the blog and for constant-content. Just like confirmed opt-in is used to prove you own an email address that you use to register for something online.

And, let's rid the use of the word plagiarism for what I did. I took a blog post of mine...and re-wrote it to better comply to the standards of what I thought constant-content wanted. I'm not sure if the article would have been accepted because it only said it was rejected for plagiarism.

If the editor can take the time to do a plagiarsim check, why not take the extra 5 seconds to shoot off a templated "concern of plagiarism" email?

And just to note this thing about "send a not to Ed if your article was requested to be in the first person." How is someone supposed to know to do that? So two things happened form this. First, the person using constant-content, requesting the article, did not get what they wanted even tough I wrote an article specifically for their request. Second, I, trying to get my first article accepted, did not. Two unhappy users because it was not stated to send a personal note to the editor about an exception in writing style.

[Ed]

I apologize if you were unfairly accused of plagiarism. Unfortunately, we would have not been able accept any more of your articles regardless. Upon registration, you agreed that you would follow our licensing structure (you chose to ask full rights for an article that was published elsewhere). Proper paragraph structure - logical grouping and development of ideas - was not followed, as in previous submissions.

Thank you,
Ed

[esemmel]

I apologize if you were unfairly accused of plagiarism. Unfortunately, we would have not been able accept any more of your articles regardless. Upon registration, you agreed that you would follow our licensing structure (you chose to ask full rights for an article that was published elsewhere). Proper paragraph structure - logical grouping and development of ideas - was not followed, as in previous submissions.

Thank you,
Ed

I was never notified of a rejection for "logical grouping and development of ideas".

The article I submitted was not the same as my blog post. Entire paragraphs were omitted and the article was changed. Yes, the blog post was the source of my idea for the article.

I used that blog post as a source because it has been very popular with my readers. These readers also read my 3 published manuals which help me to bring in 5 figures a month from my writing.

Hardly something that can be done from someone who writes without logical grouping and development of ideas.

Also, was there a 3 strike policy that I missed? Once you get rejected 3 times you are automatically banned from any more submissions?

I'm lucky I don't rely on this for any income. Other people reading this should learn that it is MUCH more profitable to self publish.

[Ed]

You received a rejection notification because you did not observe proper paragraph structure. If the writer doesn't understand proper paragraph structure, it is the writer's responsibility to look it up. Professionally written content requires observance of proper paragraph structure. Our guidelines specify that we require professionally written content.

In addition, when you registered for Constant Content, you agreed to the statement, "I understand that Constant Content reserves the rights to decline any work they feel does not meet their requirements. I am welcome to submit other work for approval even if one article has been declined. However, I understand that, if three articles are declined, Constant Content will accept no more submissions of my work."

This is why it is important to read an review all available information upon registration. You signed the registration agreement. You agreed to follow our licensing structure upon registration. Our FAQ explains what must happen in the event that the article has been published elsewhere. We can't help a writer with all technical aspects of their writing, like punctuation, grammar, and paragraph structure, but we do provide rejection reasons, which should be carefully considered and their solutions applied to all future submission. Many of the other problems could have been prevented had the registration information and information provided to facilitate an understanding of our site and the conditions for article acceptance been read.

Thank you,
Ed

[esemmel]

You received a rejection notification because you did not observe proper paragraph structure. If the writer doesn't understand proper paragraph structure, it is the writer's responsibility to look it up. Professionally written content requires observance of proper paragraph structure. Our guidelines specify that we require professionally written content.

In addition, when you registered for Constant Content, you agreed to the statement, "I understand that Constant Content reserves the rights to decline any work they feel does not meet their requirements. I am welcome to submit other work for approval even if one article has been declined. However, I understand that, if three articles are declined, Constant Content will accept no more submissions of my work."

This is why it is important to read an review all available information upon registration. You signed the registration agreement. You agreed to follow our licensing structure upon registration. Our FAQ explains what must happen in the event that the article has been published elsewhere. We can't help a writer with all technical aspects of their writing, like punctuation, grammar, and paragraph structure, but we do provide rejection reasons, which should be carefully considered and their solutions applied to all future submission. Many of the other problems could have been prevented had the registration information and information provided to facilitate an understanding of our site and the conditions for article acceptance been read.

Thank you,
Ed

Yes, I did receive one notice of not using proper paragraph structure. However, you say "Professionally written content requires observance of proper paragraph structure. Our guidelines specify that we require professionally written content."

I take issue with this statement. A professional writer is defined by the msn encarta dictionary as "somebody who writes books as a profession". That statement applies to me. If you say that I do not follow proper paragraph structure, that is fine, but then you cannot say you require professionally written content.

What you require is your own standard of content, but classifying it as "professional" is not correct.

As far as your other statement of "Constant Content reserves the rights to decline any work they feel does not meet their requirements" is a real catch-all statement that gives you the right to reject content for any reason at all. Kind of like a co-op board of an apartment building can do.

That's fine if that's your policy. It's not a good policy in my opinion, but that does not matter.

Also, if you say that your agreement states a "three declined articles and your out policy" I believe you. However such an important part of your policy, in my humble opinion, should be made much more prominent, rather than hidden in the "agreements" area that most people, I'm sure would agree, are not read very often by people.

It is important to point out how the articles were declined.

The first article I submitted, I was asked to re-submit after changes. I made changes and then was rejected for one reason "We do not accept content that uses the first-person POV". Howver, the request specifically asked for a first person point of view.

So, that article, according to the reason written to me in email, was rejected when it should not have been.

The second article was rejected for the following reason: "We cannot consider articles that do not observe proper paragraph structure. We can no longer consider this article. Do not resubmit."

So that's 1 proper rejection.

The third article was the "plagiarism" article where I was given the reason: "We accept only completely original content. Constant Content has a zero-tolerance policy for plagiarism. Your account has been suspended. We will consider no more of your submissions."

And as has been stated in this thread, I did not plagiarize. I re-wrote one of my own articles.

So, I had two articles rejected that were for mistakes on your end. Of course with the policy of "We reserve the right to reject your articles for any reason" there is that "catch-all" I talked about earlier.

[4rumid]

I'm going to chime in here very quickly, for whatever it's worth. I'll agree that CC has a lot of guidelines that aren't easy to assimilate all at once. However, reading down this thread, it seems that you're not reading the responses you're getting here any more closely than you read the rules for authors or registration agreement. There probably isn't much more feedback anyone can give you about the problems you've had.

Best of luck with your writing and continued success with self-publishing.