Articles Are Getting Bad
I wanted to put this out for moderator discussion, but I personally believe that the quality of articles are really going downhill fast. While the forums are the focus of this site, the articles should be a good extension of the advice given in the forums, and it simply isn't at this point.
An example is the last one posted about becoming a birddog. The advice is pretty bad. The one comment mentioned that, in his state, it could be construed as practicing real estate without a license, and he was correct. However, the worst part of it was that at the bottom is an ad for birddogs with a phone number to contact the author. We can't advertise in the forums, but it's okay in the article section?
Roger
Roger,
I looked at this article and thought it was nothing more than an advertisement with poor advice being given.
It is enough to do with the "email me" and advertising under a posters name, etc. for the moderators to keep up with, but when it is allowed blantantly in an article, it makes it difficult to maintain control in the forums.
"He did it, how come I can't do it."
I know Joel is very busy keeping this site going, but there should be a tighter review of articles. Three articles were deleted recently written by Omega1 because they were plagarized from other sites and not his work.
There should be some kind of check and balance system involved with articles for credibilty purposes.
$Cash$
And I have also seen articles that have been written, in my opinion, just to get points. I have read several, "Keep you head up newbie" articles that were maybe a paragraph long. Not to suggest quality lies in quantity, but an "I know it's hard but you can do it article" is pointless especially after the thrid time. I, too, also think there should be some type of tighter policing of these "articles".
I agree that the quality has gone down hill and hope there is something that can be done before things just get way out of hand.
We aren't paying the article submitters, nor do we have the time to fact check every single article we take in.
Cash has pointed out some plagarized articles in the past and we have been quick to delete them. AND has pointed out incorrect articles as well.
If you see an article that just is an out-an-out illegal action, please contact us.
NC-Yank has submitted some articles that have been really awesome and I have gained a lot of information in them. Keep up the good work NC!
I think the members activity will also be including how many houses people are posting in TCIRealty as well.
The 'Most Active List' will not be on the forum page after our theme change in a couple of months.[ Edited by joel on Date 01/18/2004 ]
Joel,
First let me say that, overall, I like this site, otherwise, I wouldn't donate as much time to it as I do. I only brought this up to try and improve the site.
I don't think that you need to pay article submitters. There are many knowledgable investors out there that are willing to submit quality articles for free. Of course, it's likely that they want the exposure for either novelity's sake or to help sell their services/wares, but the latter is just another chance for the website to make money.
As far as the time to edit or "fact-check", the articles, maybe you should take the time. That's the whole point of my post, practically anything can be submitted AND posted and it's left entirely up to the users to check and moderate the article section. Frankly, this looks very poor and cheap from a pay-for-service website.
Roger