Writers pools

[Isabelnewth]

I would suggest that there should be a limit placed on writers' pool requests which one person can claim, to prevent them being claimed en masse and then farmed out, unless CC is happy for that to happen.

(ps I just moved this post to here as I had put it in the wrong section I think)

[EFowler]

I don't belong to any writers pools (still very new!), but I agree completely with this, especially after seeing some recent discussions on this topic. Surely writing jobs being 'farmed out' goes against what Constant Content is all about?

[bhuff85]

Agreed. I always get a massive amount of "Public Pool Requests" sent to me via email. I had around 40 notifications come in while working in my email yesterday. I decided to periodically refresh the writer's pool section, just to see if any requests would appear. Did this for well over an hour and nothing ever showed up.

CC says that they are getting snapped up quickly, but something seems off about that. There must be one person who gets the notifications and somehow logs in quick enough to claim them all. Either that, or they are going into some rogue section that I can't access.

While the articles don't pay much for this particular pool, they are nice to have access to when I get a little downtime from my other projects. If things keep up like this, however, I may just remove myself from the pool so my email doesn't get clogged with hundreds of requests that aren't even available.

[evaku]

That's a good idea! I never relied on it too much but it was nice to be able to snag at least a couple. Maybe a lot more writers were added to it, but it's just such a change for the articles to suddenly be disappearing within minutes!!!

[Isabelnewth]

I was only guessing about the out-sourcing thing: it may well not be that at all. But I still think a cap on numbers which can be claimed would be a good idea.

[csjwilkinson]

Seems like there are more writers than jobs. Due to the lack of volume of jobs, some people are taking more than their fair share.

Perhaps the CC marketing team can find more customers.

[freelanceprowriter]

I've asked to be removed from the pool. All those darn emails pouring into my email just tick me off and frustrate me for the rest of the day, because I can't grab any! Enough frustration, I'm going to focus on my own projects.

[Isabelnewth]

Yikes, I finally managed to get a couple of these requests, only to be knocked back with two rejections to edit and resubmit, one partly based on my 'stating the obvious'. Ouch. Cruel but fair I suppose. This isn't easy money!

[bhuff85]

Yikes, I finally managed to get a couple of these requests, only to be knocked back with two rejections to edit and resubmit, one partly based on my 'stating the obvious'. Ouch. Cruel but fair I suppose. This isn't easy money!

I've noticed that particular pool has become more stringent with their requirements. They've also upped the ante quite a bit when it comes to the articles themselves, requiring quite a bit more legwork than they used to. Unfortunately, the compensation never increased with the additional requirements, so I've made the decision to pass on them.

[TjCharles]

I'm not concerned with the farming, frankly. At least not on this site. Anyone farming writing work out to Textbroker or Odesk or Elance is going to have to do a lot of work to get it up to CC's standards. While I agree that it's a nefarious practice in general, I don't think it would bring the site-wide quality down very much in the end. Given that the CC author would still have to put a lot of work into it to get it up to snuff, I don't know how worthwhile farming here would be, anyway. For instance, to have a shot of work getting approved on CC I would think that the farmer would have to pay Textbroker's L5 rate..which is around $25 (plus TB's fee) for a 500 word article. It's unlikely the farmer would get any profit at this rate.

I do, however, think that CC should limit our queues to around 2 or 3 for another reason. When I was first invited to a writer's pool I panicked when I realized that the orders were disappearing quickly so I claimed several thinking that I could unclaim them if need be, the way that I could on other sites. At the same time, the recent typhoon hit Manila, where my fiancee was at the time. Needless to say, I had trouble completing all of my orders and to top it off only later did I realize that CC strongly discourages us from unclaiming articles.

On the second round of articles for that project I only claimed what I could complete, but then I got hit with a stomach bug right after Thanksgiving. So again, I had trouble.

TLDR; stuff happens, and I don't think it's really beneficial for us to have an unlimited queue. 3 sets of 5 with a deadline of a few days is as much as anyone (who isn't farming) can handle anyway.

[TjCharles]

freelanceprowriter,

If you have Gmail you can tell it to send those emails to your "Promotions" tab. That way, you know it's junk mail when you click on the tab and you can just go in and mass delete everything. It works as a sudo-spam folder if you program it.

I didn't like tabs at first but I love it now.

[Isabelnewth]

It must be a difficult balance for the site. When I started the thread I wasn't thinking about the requests that come in clumps of 5 or 10, which certainly have their own problems.

At the moment I think the problem is getting these ones claimed and written, so rapid disappearance isn't an issue. It must be extremely difficult trying to satisfy bulk customers while keeping up quality, and honestly I have no idea how the site should do it....but I hope your fiancee is okay!

[topquark]

I love the fact that CC allows writers to have as many articles as they like in their queue. I'm on a project team for one client who posts jobs with a deadline of over a month. It's very useful to be able to claim those articles so that both I and the client know that I'll be working on them, but not have to submit them right away.

The problem with other sites that impose limits on the queue is that you end up claiming one article from a batch, doing loads of research that would allow you to complete many articles from that batch, but by the time you've completed the first article all the others have gone. It can also be useful to write a batch of articles and then submit them all at once, as during the process of writing you realize that certain sections would be better placed in a different article rather than in the one where you originally placed it. Also, as you keep researching, you come across pieces of information that could enhance articles you have already written.

[TjCharles]

Good Point, topquark

[Kitagrl]

Oh wait...so THIS is why I get writer's pools in my email and then I get online and there is nothing? Today I went online as soon as I received the email and could not find the writer's pool topic anywhere. So that means it was full in less than two minutes?