Feedback Article Marketplace Must be Destroyed

This is an anecdote detailing a journey I embarked on this morning in a land more commonly known as 'The Digital Point Article Marketplace'.

I was browsing the article marketplace for fun. I was wondering exactly how the Digital Point quality score worked. The computer seemed to magically be able to determine an articles quality, and would grade it on a 100 point scale.

How awesome I thought to myself. Never again will I need to worry about hiring writers. I'll just purchase the top 20 articles, slap em' on a blog and watch the organic traffic start to pour in. I could even create a system called 'How to build a blog without ever writing a single article' which would outline the process using a couple quick videos - easy money, right?

I decided I wanted to purchase an article with a high quality score to see just how epic it truly was. With no real process, I decided the purchase the first article in the list, with a perfect 100 score.

I went through the motions in PayPal, just to receive this error:



Oh well, let's try the next article in line...



Ah! Let's try the next one, surely someone will take my money...



Now, I enjoy a good game of baseball (Go Cardinals). Typically, it's '3 strikes and you're out'. However, I was determined to give my money to SOMEONE. It's become a challenge at this point, which I bravely accepted.

The next article had a near-perfect score of 95. Alright, let's do this...

Wha? What! Could it be? Payment complete?! Yes, It's true!
Payment Complete, Payment Complete!

I quickly downloaded the article before the rug could be pulled from beneath my feet.

There it was, on my screen. As if it were mocking me.

Just moments before I felt like the king of the world, how quickly things change.

For words cannot express the article that sat before me.
I'll allow you to craft your own adjectives...

10 Habits of Successful People
-------------------

Nearly all successful people have similar habits. If you are not keen enough, you may never notice these habits. So, do you dream to become successful one day? Well here is how…

10 Habits of SuccessfulPeople

1. Decisive

The decisions that you make, whether small or big, will affect your success in life. It's important to make sure that these decisions complement your values. If you are unable to make the right decisions, then you will find it very difficult to live a successful life.

2. Responsible

Being responsible means taking control of the events happening in your life. It’s the difference between success and failure. Your actions will influence your success, so be more responsible.

3. Focused

Focusing on the goals that you set will help you become successful within no time. Without focus, you will be unable to do important things that will set your life on a new path to success. All I can tell you is focus.

4. Wake Up Early

Most who are successful in life, cultivate a habit of waking up early. If you have difficulty with waking up early, you should try different techniques like finding an alarm clock, avoiding light or screen an hour before retiring to bed etc.

5. Avoid Distractions

There are a number of distractions in your life that can lead to your failure in life. For instance, drugs, bad company, social media and much more. To avoid distractions, make sure that you work on completing the items on your to-do list before your work day ends.

6. Patient

Patience pays. To become successful you have to practice patience. If you do your things hurriedly, chances are that you won't do them the right way and you will become a failure. Take your time to attract success.

7. Listen More and Speak Less

Those who are successful use most of their time listening instead of speaking. By listening more and speaking less you have time to digest what you are listening to make sound decisions.

8. Respectful

In most disciplines, respect is the key to success. Without respect, you won't be able to taste success no matter how hard you try.

9. Always Make The First Move

Be bold in life and always make the first move and avoid being after the crowd. Always be ahead of the pack if you want to taste success.

10. Manage Time Well

Time is money. So, if you don’t manage your time well, don’t expect success to come on a silver platter.

Wrap Up:

To sum it up, becoming successful is without a doubt one of the most coveted achievements today. However, as you can clearly see, it requires a fair share of effort although it's still possible. If you keenly stick to the 10 habits outlined in this post,you can make your dream of becoming successful a reality.

I think my next system will be called 'How NOT to find content for your blog'.

The End

 

You're absolutely correct.

I wrote this more for entertainment purposes only.

 

The quality score metric should be taken with a grain of salt.

 

Depth is not the only thing lacking in this article. It has literally no value. Piece of redundant crap. Money stealing at its best.

Absolutely disappointing to know that the quality scores of the articles in the marketplace are all automated.

Seriously, WTH??!

I just signed up under the conviction that all marketplace articles are actually reviewed by editors. I was hoping there were real people involved in the process to guarantee no BS "quality" standards. Turns out that this is no better than articlesale.com, where any illiterate opportunist can just sell any gibberish they want. If writers can liberally set their prices, there's no way to know whether an article is worth anything at all. This marketplace is a joke.

I wonder how the articles with 50/60 scores are. And whether more expensive articles actually justify the higher price tags.

 

I'm shocked you would expect someone to proofread such low priced articles.

How could you NOT think it's an automated process?

The price of articles is a lot more indicative of quality.

 

You expect anyone to take this seriously? Why would that be any indication of quality when articles are not reviewed by human editors?

As I said above, if writers can set prices liberally, there's no guarantee that more expensive articles are actually better. This was the point of my post, by the way. I wasn't necessarily shocked at the quality of the article for its price. I was shocked at the lack of human feedback/judgement in the quality ratings.

 

It is a much better indicator than the quality score because most article writers have a rough idea of how much their content is worth.

Potential buyers would surely ask for samples before forking out a lot of money. Most articles in the marketplace are priced cheaply because quite frankly they're not very good and written by people whose first language isn't English.

 

I agree with you 100%. My only point was, maybe we need to get rid of (or rephrase) the quality score because it throws off a lot of people.

Especially newbies that can't immediately tell a good article from a bad one. They fork over $50 (a lot of money for a newbie) and purchase 5 - 10 articles, slap em' on their blog and then get ripped to shreds (by me) when they try to sell that website a month later because it bombed.

 

I agree with you. It gives a false sense of quality.

 

What the marketplace really needs is to put some real people behind the quality assessments, otherwise buying an article here is nothing but a high risk gamble.

I'm not here to buy, by the way. My intent is (well, was) to sell articles in the marketplace and get some honest feedback on my writing.

But if I were a buyer, I obviously couldn't simply trust any writer's word. Samples aren't always honest indications of skill. And there are probably as many dishonest "writers" uploading pseudo-articles to this marketplace as there are clueless "writers" who have no idea how to write. A lot of time would have to be dedicated to build some trust.

 

They won't hire an editor. It would be too tedious and then they would have to get into disputes if someone didn't like the article.

Mods are all volunteer, nobody wants to do boring work like proofreading articles for free.

Plus, the quality score would be up to the discretion of the editor - which could change and may not suit the tastes of the buyer.

There is absolutely a way for you to sell articles here, I'd love to give you some tips - even though I'm not a writer. I only sell articles that I don't have use for after receiving (it happens).

When listing an article for sale, spend a couple minutes and craft an awesome description. People will read that and know the article they are purchasing will be high quality.



Also, get a profile picture of yourself - it builds trust with the buyer. Growing your Posts / Likes will also add a layer of confidence.

Digital Point is just like any one marketplace - people only want to purchase from someone they like and trust.

So, here's your homework:

1) Add a profile picture.

2) Add an article to the marketplace (if you can, not sure if you need to be established first). Be sure to craft a high quality description which will tell the buyer EXACTLY what they will receive.

3) Add a link to this article for sale in your Digital Point signature.

4) Start posting and having fun!

Since you seem to be a knowledgeable writer. They would love your insight over at the copy writing section. Here's the link: https://forums.digitalpoint.com/forums/copywriting.86/

Here's an example of the perfect post to get you started, simply offer your opinion: https://forums.digitalpoint.com/threads/what-do-you-think-about-my-english.2783670/

Also, be sure to follow like-minded DP users. Since you're a writer - you and @Spoiltdiva will get along great! In my opinion, the absolute best writer-for-hire on Digital Point is @FCS Eli. It's pretty ironic because he only has 7 posts and no profile picture. However, he stays very busy. I won't publish a piece of content on the web unless it goes through him. If you go to his profile and see the posts he has created, you can really feel his writing style. It's almost like you are standing there talking to him in person - this is exactly the kind of stuff that gets clients to hire you.

WARNING: One thing I can't stress enough. Since you're a writer, other members are going to judge you based on the posts you create - even if they have nothing to do with actual writing. It's like someone that claims to be an SEO expert posting a sales thread for 10,000 blog comments - if really hurts their credibility. Make sure to proofread every single post before publishing.

 

I tried the system when you first launched it and I quickly realized that I am one of those atypical Internet users in that I prefer all emails to come into my inbox without any spam filtering. I am quick enough to spot spam and delete it and I would prefer to pretty much eliminate the possibility that I am not showed something that I would have preferred to have seen. So, I pretty quickly turned off the quality score system as I prefer to choose for myself what I read and what I skip over in a thread. But, I know that I am a bit unusual given the complaints I hear from people who get a few dozen spam emails each day. I get hundreds across all of my email addresses and it does not bother me. In fact, I take some pleasure in quickly ascertaining that I do not need to read an email and can just delete it. Feels good, when I do. Same with low quality posts that I skip over.