Maybe you’ve heard.
eHow announced today via a casually indifferent video blog post that it had heard the “chatter” and the “buzz,” and although they were “unable” to pay writers for the profits garnered from the “UK” site, they had decided to pony up “generously” via early-February payments to writers.
I know.
There’s nothing more annoying than reading a bunch of words in quotation marks, so don’t ever do it.
But how else can one subtly suggest that the words enclosed therein are what Ian Lurie called, “stinky and mushy” just four short days ago?
Wait a sec. Has it only been four days since Ian asked for a public explanation of how eHow is going to fix their mess? And compensation was one of the four steps he outlined…
Does that mean eHow will also own the problem, build transparency, and fix the terms of service as Ian suggested?
It’s not looking that way, from the “aw shucks” attitude evident on the video that dismisses the importance of two months of eHow members’ distress and six months of earnings losses, including during the holidays in one of the worst economic periods that most of us can remember, with glib, stammering banter. Sheesh.
But I’ll cast my doubts aside and give eHow the benefit of the doubt. And to celebrate this momentous occasion precipitated not, as one might imagine, by the sound of stampeding attorneys and outraged marks–uh, peeps–but by a “couple of postings” the GM saw, I present the Unofficial Official eHow Dictionary.
And after you check the dictionary out, if you’re really bored, go to the eHow video blog and count the number of “Uhs,” stammers, and backtracks when they diverge from the script.
I know you wanna believe ’em. I know you do. It’s easier.
But can you seriously watch that video and not picture your seven-year-old’s face when you caught him feeding week-old cat food to his baby sister?
Edit: 2/19/2010 Invitation= Kidnapping as in, “We won’t let you edit your own profiles on our fake UK site, because you are invited to participate in our global [seriously?] community.”
| The Official eHow & Demand Media Dictionary | |
| Ass | A magic eHow donkey that, when kissed, dispenses treats. |
| Busted | November 5, 2009 |
| Buzz | The sound of approaching swarms of attorneys. |
| Chatter | What eHow calls what members do when they are really pissed off. |
| Conflict of Interest | When you don’t know which football game to watch. |
| Dumb | Getting caught. (varies from standard definition of doing the wrong thing in the first place.) |
| eHow | Eee…how? Something said to a judge or jury when stalling for time. |
| Fair | An event the county holds in the summer with a petting zoo and rides. |
| G | Slang. i.e. “G, you don’t mind if we pick your pockets, do you?” |
| Generous | Ellen’s last name. |
| How | All Demand Media needs to know about doing something shady. |
| Ignorant | Verb. When eHow ignores concerns, as in, “We are ignorant them peeps.” |
| Justice | Defined by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn as, “Justice is conscience, not a personal conscience but the conscience of the whole of humanity…” (Not funny–just true.) |
| K | Question: “We didn’t mean to get caught stealing from you, K?” |
| LOL | What Demand Media management does when they screw the peeps. |
| Moderators | A secret society of censors. Or sensors. |
| Noticed | Ignored out loud. |
| O | Popular eHow expression as in, “O, We didn’t think you would notice.” |
| Peeps | Victims |
| Question | Something that goes away if you pretend not to notice it. NOT. |
| Ripoff | Come on. You know you want it. BOHICA. |
| S | That very ssspecial sssound Demand Media makes in the grassss. |
| Server | A large, sophisticated piece of electronic equipment that eHow does not know the location of. US? UK? Hard to tell without our glasses on. So we’ll just delete your questions about that one and move on, K? |
| Spin | Another four-letter ‘S’ word for “I DON’T THINK SO.” |
| True | Inconvenient |
| UK | A country located in the state of Washington. |
| US | UK (remember, this is an eHow dictionary, peeps.) |
| Victim | *see ‘Peep’ |
| WTF | Used to express surprise, as in, “WTF! They expect to be PAID for their work?” |
| X | The mark used for deleting inconvenient Terms of Service clauses. |
| Y | What eHow members who know what really happened are still asking. |
| Zzz | What the people who engineered the eHow scam should not be able to do at night. |
How can people still write for that website, in good conscience?
Right now, there are over 14 thread pages of users ‘attempting’ to get ‘answers’, but to no avail.
Some say, perhaps you should “reword” the question so “Rich” can understand it better….or, others also suggest aggregating all questions in a central location, because eHow tends to “miss” them if not posted in the “appropriate” forum….
If I were still and eHow writer, I would be pulling out my hair right now.
Not only is this site so painstakingly difficult to use, but, the umbrella company is as dirty as they come.
To your readers Crunchy:
There are other BETTER (seriously…better…) websites out there to write for. In fact, there are 20+ that I can name off the top of my head. Save yourself the agony and stay clear of eHow.
LOL…nice 🙂
“UK A country located in the state of Washington.
US UK (remember, this is an eHow dictionary, peeps.)”
OMG!! LMAO!! I laughed so hard I spit on my keyboard!! OK, that was kinda gross, but I had a great laugh!! Thanks!! And you are right!! : )
In case you haven’t kept up, new articles are now NOT being redirected from the UK site. Several writers have verified the problem. I quit writing for them in 2009 as soon as the problem was discovered and although I’m leaving my articles up, it’s unlikely I will ever write for them again. I prefer Infobarrel and Hubpages, because those sites at least are clear about their TOs, and it’s my goal to have 100 articles on each of those sites by June (so far 60 on IB and 7 on HP). I may not have the highest-paying keywords, but at least I’m becoming recognized as an authority on a number of subjects, and this will help when I’m promoting my book and forthcoming blogs (my current blog carries no advertising but is marketed by Amazon for the Kindle).
Yes, I have seen at least one writer’s article that is now on eHow “UK.” This is total BS. Thank you for the update that ALL new articles are not being redirected. I was not aware that this was affecting more than one person.
There’s more VERY shady stuff going on again, too, that no one seems to be aware of yet. Looking into that now and will update here as soon as I can.
This cracks me up. Thanks Kim. I’ll give it a link in my ehow update post.
Thanks, Jade. If we don’t laugh, we’ll cry. Can you even believe this mess? Articles back up on the UK site that isn’t even a UK site and…it never ends with eHow. And when it finally does, it won’t end well.
I started writing for eHow in May, and just when my earnings were really taking off, this fiasco butts in. I am also going to give eHow the benefit of the doubt, but I’m not expecting them to truly fess up.
Thanks for stopping by, Rachel. I read on your blog that Writer Gig will give her updated eHow ebook to anyone who previously purchased it. That’s impressive. I don’t think eHow is a good bet for any writer these days, but anyone still considering it might want to stop by Rachel’s blog at Pen Meets Wallet and read more about her take on the issues and Writer Gig’s updated eHow ebook.