Tweaking and Improving the MyLot Experience
By JC1969
@JC1969 (1224)
United States
January 6, 2007 2:39am CST
Most of you who have gotten to know me, know my biggest peeve comes with those that cheat on mylot by plagiarizing, copyright infringing, and just plain trying to get paid from using other peoples words--other people who have worked hard writing those words.
I tire of stumbling on the numerous discussion threads that offer little value and are frivolous polls or surveys, which are in violation of myLot rules; yet nevertheless, they are still on here.
Mylot institutes a new policy of no copy and paste till you hit 500, yet most of those who were cheating had already reached that mark and hire, and are still cheating, and are still getting paid to do so. Also, many more new members have found away around the 500 mark, by using a different browser that bypasses mylots copy and paste rule. So, that didn't solve a thing.
So, I sit here and think to myself, "How can Mylot fix these issues, and make the mylot experience better?"
In talking to others there are some pretty good suggestions out there, and I'd love to ponder up some more, and maybe myLot will actually listen to us, the ones that do make this community a positive place and not a place to scam and earn.
Suggestions to think about:
-Stricter joining policy. Maybe mylot can add a training evaluation to their joining policy. During the time you fill out your application, you will have to write something original (at least 75+ wds)and formulate a discussion based on one of your listed interests. Mylot will also give the person a mock discussion, in which they will have to also respond too (in at least 50+ wds). After that, they will be asked a serious of questions based on the writer's guidelines. Once this is done, their application will be reviewed. I think this would send a clear message to those that are using this forum to scam for money, that this is not what the forum will tolerate.
-Next, I think it would be great (I've pondered this with other mylot members)if mylot would start an area for them annoying survey/poll type of questions, jokes (they are always copy and pasted from somewhere else), and anything else that doesn't promote discussion in a positive way. This area would be a 'NON-PAID' area. Once you add the fact that people will not be paid for those types of discussions, you are going to see the cheaters and scammers leave mylot.
-I'd also love to see some writing/editing tools added to the posting area. (spell and grammar check, link insert) These features would be helpful to those who can't copy and paste yet, and in that case mylot would be able to lift the copy and paste feature even from those that reached 500.
Okay, just some of my muses. Anyone have other positive ways to improve the mylot experience and community?
5 people like this
19 responses
@Lakota12 (42600)
• United States
6 Jan 07
one thing about writting 50 words or more : every time I do that I get a blank page when I summit.
They also need some one to go thru every day to delete the copy paste postswhen their money goes down they should stop or leave.
also It would be nice to be able to go in and delete a discussion you started that isnt getting any responces or one that is in there 2 times
@JC1969 (1224)
• United States
6 Jan 07
That's weird, have you messaged mylot and let them know what happens everytime you write more than 50wds? I would definitely write them and let them know about that, because I am sure if you are experiencing that, many others might be as well.
Yeah I wish mylot could work faster to delete the discussions that are in violation, but with as many as there are here, it is definitely a hard thing for them to do. I think they should maybe hire some of us that would police the site according to their writer's guidelines, and allow us to delete these discussions for them. As it is there are many of us that are reporting the abuses.
I'd like some editing features too, and definitely the ability to delete a discussion I create or a response that I may give. How many times I write something and go back and notice something may be wrong with what I wrote, or a link I give doesn't work. It would be helpful to be able to edit our own discussions and responses.
1 person likes this
banning copy and paste didnt solve problem
block scammers
browser
cut down
earning
earnings
edit
flow
glitches
ideas
iespell
keywords
make friends
messages
minds
money
mylot is not a job
noticed
page
paid
peoples
profit
quality
quality first
reply
responses
returned
rules
scamming
serious
staff
stealing
stricter joining policies
suggestions
think twice
wins
writing
@ESKARENA1 (18261)
•
6 Jan 07
i too am getting blank pages when i submit a full answer or addition to debate i was starting to think i must be getting something wrong couldnt there be a known bugs and glitches page? that would help a lot
@JC1969 (1224)
• United States
7 Jan 07
I think this may be a glitch of some sort and I really think you all should report this to mylot. They may not be aware of this and how broad of a problem it has become with members. Also, they may know about it already and can tell you why it is happening. Please come back and let us know if you find out why.
@sunshinecup (7871)
•
7 Jan 07
Not sure if this was mentioned, my puter is running really slow this morning and I gave up on trying to get the page to load to veiw all the posts. I would like to be able to edit my posts, after they have posted. Too many times I post it then a few minutes later, I think of a better way I could have phrased somthing or something more I wished I added. Worse yet I find another spelling mistake and it drives me nuts.
2 people like this
@JC1969 (1224)
• United States
7 Jan 07
Hey Sunshinecup,
Yeah, this seems like a common want amongst members. I would love to have more editing abilities and features, and would love to go back after I have posted a response and fix my errors. Hopefully, mylot will implement these features in the future. I think it would increase the quality of the site as well.
1 person likes this
@Metallion (2227)
• United States
7 Jan 07
Part of the problem with your suggestions I think is the number of people required to do the monitoring, I don't think mylot has that big of a staff. Good ideas, but don't think it's feasible.
1 person likes this
@patootie (3592)
•
7 Jan 07
I think I am still too much of a newbie to pass comment on some of the issues you have raised here .. 3 weeks isn't long enough to have settled in yet .. but I would wholeheartedly agree with a spell checker .. that's one of the main reasons I use 'copy and paste' .. I have Fibromyalgia Syndrome and as soon as I start to get fatigued my spelling goes right out the window ...
Even if I read through my work it still looks fine, words look correct and so I post away .. but I've made a few howlers since the copy and paste rule started (400 rating to date) .. so I'm now back to writing my posts where I can use a spell checker .. but technically I am not copy and pasting.
I can also see where copy and paste benefits some folks who have to use expensive ISP's and/or have download limits .. using copy and paste would enable them to find the discussions they would like to join in with .. go off line to complete their replies and then come back to post them ... so there could be a lot of folks in some countries who are now being penalised by the copy and paste rule ..
I am also confused by the fact that although MyLot is supposedly set up as a site where folks can hold discussions .. there is no incentive to go back to a discussion once started .. because any replies beyond the initial post are not paid .. and surely that's what a discussion is .. a trading of comments by several people and further replies once other peoples comments are made ... not one person posting a subject .. then a string of comments being tagged on in reply to the initial comment, but bearing no relationship to the post above and below it .. that seems a bit odd to me ..
1 person likes this
@JC1969 (1224)
• United States
7 Jan 07
New and old, I think many of us aren't all that sure what exactly mylot is applying an earning too. Is it only the discussion, or is it the responses as well. Like will I be paid for each reply I give to each person that responds in my discussion as well. I've heard yes from some, and no from others. However when I joined here, it was definitely not for the money, sure it's a perk, but I don't look at this as a salary or a job. I like the interaction with others. If I make enough to buy myself a cup of coffee, hey that's good enough for me. I use this forum as filler time between my writing jobs, and other offline work I do.
@Eskimo (2315)
•
7 Jan 07
There are a lot of people (myself included) who joined 3weeks ago or less, and you have as much right to comment (especially with over 400 ratings) as anyone else, MyLot itself is fairly new anyway and is still evolving. If the comments bear no relation to the original post they should either be marked negatively or reported to MyLot.
As far as I can see if your ratings increase in number then you are getting paid for it, what doesn't seem to get paid is additional comments on the comments, so I won't get paid for this one, I'm not sure if I can put an additional comment on the main topic and get paid for that (I've already put a comment on the main topic).
@Eskimo (2315)
•
7 Jan 07
I'm wrong,I just got an increase in the number of ratings so it must be additional comments that you don't get paid for, so anyone who puts rubbish into the comments on comments are just doing it for the money.
Pasting (instead of cutting and pasting) would help deter spammers from just copying other peoples work, using spelling checkers doesn't mean that the English would be correct, just that a correct word is being used.
@nayand (168)
•
7 Jan 07
I am relatively new to this but still can make out what is suggested of. I think to make any program success we need to have guidelines and people need to follow those guide lines. I strongly feel that technology should come into play here. Like not allowing paste to this page and some kind of mechanism not to allow duplicate contents. I am sure other members have other ideas too.
1 person likes this
@JC1969 (1224)
• United States
7 Jan 07
I agree that not allowing copy and pasting for all members no matter the rating would be great, but I found out from some other members that if you use certain other browsers, you can bypass mylot's no copy and paste rule. This is why you see many new members who do not have a rating of 500 yet are still able to copy and paste.
@flex90 (1441)
•
6 Jan 07
Your second and third suggestions are good but the first one would be really hard to execute. There are over 54,000 members already and that number does not look to be stopping, therefore this would create a huge workload on mylot staff. Not only that, but because of the lengthy process, potential members might be put off joing the site.
1 person likes this
@JC1969 (1224)
• United States
6 Jan 07
I think it would be alot of hard work to implement, but it also may put off those that are joining for one purpose-scamming. It may also put off those that think mylot is a job and a salary, because I find that most of those who joined with that perception are also in majority the ones violating the rules here.
But you are correct, it would be alot of work to execute; however, I think mylot is also spending extreme time and work going over all the abuse reports that are being filed against these cheaters, so maybe if there was a stricter joining policy, they may not have to do as much sifting through cheaters later on. These are just ideas though.
I think the best one would be create an area for the survey/polling simple questions that offer no value, and jokes--and let it be known that it is a 'non-paid' area. I think that would also weed out people who are here for the wrong reasons.
@spcbrass (1190)
• United States
6 Jan 07
I have actually seen a lot less of the sopying and pasting since myLot instituted the 500 post rule. There were a lot of people blatantly posting huge articles from other sources that had very low numbers of posts and I am not seeing that in the new discussions any more. I still catch people with higher ratings from time to time cheating but those are fewer and farther in between. I agree with you about the people just starting usless discussions to try and increase ratings. If I wanted to read survery or jokes all day long I know plenty of websites where I could do that. There is still cheating going on out there on myLot but it is far and away better then what it was one month ago.
The biggest thing that myLot needs for improvement is spell check. The spell check tool would really be a help to those of us who really care about what we try to write. Many people that still take shortcuts or have trouble typing in English would not benefit from such a tool however. Still I really hope that myLot makes an effort to add this soon.
1 person likes this
@JC1969 (1224)
• United States
7 Jan 07
Now, I have seen just the opposite. I found that the new 500 rule did very little to cut down on the copy and paste problem, and that the ones who were scamming by plagiarizing and copyright infringing articles from other websites are still doing it, and many of them already had well over 500 rating before the new rule; so, that did little to punish them. Also, I have found numerous new members who have less than 500 that are able to copy and paste and are doing so.
I'm part of a yahoo group that discusses the scamming that goes on here, and daily we discover new members joining and scamming. I think many of these new members may also be ones that had their accounts deleted and have come back with a new name. Thats another issue going on here.
I see a big problem for mylot if they don't rid these plagiarizers and copyright infringers quickly. All it will take is for one of these websites to do a check to see if their material has been used without credit or permission, and mylot can get into trouble because they are allowing it to be done on their site. They have to act more swiftly. I mean I have see people taking whole articles from major reputable sites and not crediting them. This could bring legal issues to mylot.
@Eskimo (2315)
•
6 Jan 07
I would agree with you, I think there should be a minimum number of words (What about a maximum as well, so that the discussion is readable), I would also like some kind of ratio between the number of discussions started and the number of discussions responded to, so that people are not just shoving lots of discussions onto the site, I've noticed that some people put several discussions on after each other, resulting in other discussions being pushed off the front page of the New Discussion List very quickly, so how about a limit to the number of discussions put on the site, hourly & daily.
Why do people need to cut and paste anyway unless it's for spelling checking, in which case a spell checker should be provided on Mylot.
What I really hate though is discussions being started with about 3 words especially when 2 or more of these are abbreviated, I would like to see 'TXT' type discussions banned, you also mention Jokes, these aren't really meaningful discussions are they? if people want to post jokes I agree also that these should be in a seperate section - either non-paid or paid very little.
Lets have responsible and meaningful discussions on Quality Topics, not things like 'Ow R U'
1 person likes this
@JC1969 (1224)
• United States
7 Jan 07
No, the word count I gave in my discussion only applies to when a person joins. My idea is to make joining more specific, where you have to prove to mylot that you have good intentions, that you understand the purpose of this site, that you can construct a well thought out discussion as well as give a well thought out response. Once your membership has been approved on that basis, then you wouldn't necessarily have to create discussions that are lengthy, you should use your common sense though and post something of substance.
Well, I too noticed that many of the people cheating on this site are creating useless discussions in quantity. Like there is one guy who has been top user often, and he will pose a question as the title of his discussion and then the body of his discussion has a string of "??". The title of his discussions will change with respect to one or two words. Heck, I could sit here and do that all day and also reach a rating of over 2000 in no time.
I really think having a non-paid area would definitely be instrumental--and I think alot of your scammers would go away when they found out most of their discussions would fall into the non-paid section.
1 person likes this
@freesoul (3021)
• Egypt
7 Jan 07
I have posted my opinion and suggestions many times in somehow similar discussions, I feel really frustrated that mylot admin doesn't seem to want to do much about it, I mean me as one person if I wasn't posting at all and just looking through the site for 4 hours a day I would have deleted hundreds of violations every day, if there's only one person at mylot that doing this all day the site will soon get cleaned out and people who are in for a easy money will get the picture and either play fair or leave. why mylot is not doing this? can anybody tell me? aren't they even looking at the top and hot discussions every now and then? aren't they checking some of the top members profiles before paying them? abuses and abusers are on the site for long months, I find it hard to believe that mylot is just unable to catch with them yet when I saw some discussions being deleted for alleged abuse where there are no abuses in it at all.
@JC1969 (1224)
• United States
7 Jan 07
freesoul,
I have nothing else to add to what you have said--are you walking in my mind and stealing my thoughts LOL. Like I said earlier to some one else's response, I would think mylot would be really concerned that, on average, they have probably paid out loads of money to the majority of their listed 'top users', and a majority of them have violated mylot writer's guidelines again and again and again. They came up with that new 500 rating rule and I laughed at it, because it rewarded those that scam and cheat here daily--it almost validated them for doing it.
We keep reporting, and they are slow to act, which tells me that they do not have the manpower. In the long run, this may be the downfall of this forum. All it will take is one of these sites to do a copyright infringement check and turn up posts that are here on mylot, and mylot is technically liable for allowing it to remain. That's a big problem, and even though mylot has a policy against it, they are slow to dealing with the numerous people who are doing it.
Then I noticed that for as many as we get removed for abuse, there are even more returning, or they are the same ones coming back with different names. This is why I suggest a stricter joining policy, and the 'non-paid' areas. I think that would help lessen those characters from joining to begin with.
@freesoul (3021)
• Egypt
8 Jan 07
The way I understand it there's no mylot rule against copying and pasting thoughts! are you accusing me of abuse?? lol
Seriously, sometimes I feel that some members like you and me and other guys posting here are more concerned about the program than its owners, I know the owner/s must be smart people and know what they are doing to be able to do such a great concept and technical stuff, etc they may have other plans like leaving it to get bigger and more known before they actually start to be strict with members but I do think they must pay more attention to what members think, if we want it to be better we can help them a lot if they listen to us, some of our suggestions are very simple and effective and they will do much better if they get ride of the low quality materials all around the site and I think maybe 80% of those abusing the system now will play fair and be content with less money for real work, some people are not really bad but they are poor, when they see easy money they can not resist it as they see many others are doing the same thing and getting paid.
@kathy77 (7486)
• Australia
7 Jan 07
yes well actually I have never used other peoples word I use my own words, and you are right no copy and pasting until you reach 500. I do think though that if mylot did this what you are saying here you would not find many people joining, some of what you say here is ok as for myself I do not just do mylot for money but I love to contribute my ideas, discuss what I think to get my point to others.
@JC1969 (1224)
• United States
7 Jan 07
I think on an average, some of these suggestions would definitely make a scammer and cheater think twice about joining, and if that was the case, then mylot wins in the end. They would have a community they could promote and stand by as honest and ethical, and they would get the quality discussions they claim they only want.
@jackslaiter (371)
• India
6 Jan 07
Many new features and facilities can improve MyLot experince. Some of them are as follows a)Facility to remove your posting that do not get responses and also a utility to edit a certain posting that is not generating response. This will help in erasing useless content by the user themselves (b)Feature to check your rating made by others. This will help in improving reponses. It will also give the idea if some body is misusing this facility by giving negative rating. (c)Mylot should disclose their earning formula and should not keep it confidential as i think there is no harm in it. It will help in growing faith among users of this site . (d)Complete Display of Profile of people and not just name,age and location.
I am looking for more new things...i will let you know them soon
@bargainbetty (20)
• United States
6 Jan 07
It is too bad that people find a way to "cheat" at just about any situation! I believe in karma. What goes around comes around. You do good, you get good. You do dirt, you get dirt! Their day will come.
1 person likes this
@JC1969 (1224)
• United States
17 Jan 07
Well, if I really saw that banning the copy and paste feature did anything to stop those that were on here cheating by plagiarizing and copyright infringing, I would agree that banning the feature was a good idea. However, when the ban first went into practice, the people that were abusing it most had way over 500 rating, so they were still able to use the feature they were cheating with. Then, it came to light that many others who had way below 500 were also still able to use the copy and paste feature, and were able to bypass mylot's feature. So, banning it really didn't solve the problem.
@sumathishetra (1178)
• India
7 Jan 07
ya , mylot is doing good thing i think , all over i want to say that mylot must punish those cheating.
@sumathishetra (1178)
• India
7 Jan 07
thanks for attractin our attention towards your good thought. thank u.
@gajodhar_pande (274)
• India
6 Jan 07
well the ones you provided are more than enough
we don't need anymore
@maru_047in (1007)
• India
6 Jan 07
Yes tell me Dude?? Thats what i m looking for
And tell me is their any other way to make money rather than Mylot.
@maxmathur (157)
• India
7 Jan 07
its sad that this is happening
the user account of such people should be deleted
