eHow Defenders Still Going Strong

The discussion on eHow is rife again with name-calling in the forums, excuses for eHow's behaviour and responses or lack of them, and plenty of other issues. For those who are unfamiliar with eHow's current issues, there are several, and so here they are, in no particular order:

Sporadic earnings updates

There are no updates on views or earnings for today. One eHower defends them, saying "the [sic] are probably behind because of end of the year tax stuff". On the face of this, this may seem perfectly logical. However, there's a real issue here. The computers are not behind because of end-of-year tax stuff. The earnings and views updaters, one hopes, are software programs that are triggered, either by date and time, or by an event, to run automatically. A person might be behind because of end-of-year tax stuff. Software programs should not be affected. In fact, there is no reason at all for the views updater not to run, unless the eHow servers are completely overloaded. Admittedly, if the earnings updater relies on an event, such as a report from Google Adsense or another advertiser, then if that event does not occur, there would not be an earnings update. However, it is a simple software modification to add date/time check and if the event is not triggered, arrange to display a status line to print to say, "Earnings report from third party not yet received."

And if, actually, there is a poor slob chained to a desk at eHow somewhere, manually counting views and earnings, then certainly, even if this person is paid minimum wage, a programmer at 100 times minimum wage would, in the long run, be a much better investment.

Lack of Response about the UK Site and Earnings

The forum thread has been deleted, with dozens of postings, but eHow has plenty of defenders on this issue, too. The most egregious of these was an eHow writer named mwchambers, who wrote to the effect that eHow is a corporation, eHow writers are all private contractors, and that to expect ANY answer on ANY question WHATSOEVER was a "Democratic viewpoint" and stemmed from a "sense of entitlement." Honestly, I was tempted to flag this user for abusiveness. The Terms of Service, Terms of Use, etc. are contracts. Contracts are either enforceable or not enforceable--just because you agree to something does not mean that it will be upheld in court, as some contracts are voidable, and others are void from the beginning. In any case, asking to clarify the terms of a contract is good business sense, not a "sense of entitlement."

Update:

In a thread on eHow, we find this:

Re: Bug: UK articles ranking higher
posted at 1/5/2010 11:30 PM PST

Rich - eHow Community Manager
Hey guys,

I'm looking into how much of an impact this UK thing is having, so please be patient while we are doing some research on this. Thanks.

-Rich

And this response: [name omitted because this person is not a representative of eHow]

"Patience is good.

"But we first asked about this on NOVEMBER 5, 2009.

"It looks like it was asked in December, because the original thread was moved, but it has been TWO FULL MONTHS since you were asked directly whether members earn from their UK articles.

"Two months is patient in our book. How do you define patience, Rich? eHow?

"Can we expect a direct, yes or no answer tomorrow, January 7, 2010?

"How about Monday, January 11, 2010? Friday, January 15, 2010?

"Demand Media and eHow have known for more than five months whether members here will be paid for their UK views, and there is no more denying that the clones are competing for traffic against the US originals.

"So when will that answer be fleshed out? When can we expect it?

"When?"


Second update:

eHow is moving members' photo files to the UK server without their knowledge or permission. If you write for eHow and have obtained permission from a third party to use a photo, graphic, etc. on a single, specified web page, I strongly suggest that you delete that photo for the time being, until you can secure an additional permssion for cloned or mirrored sites, or until eHow addresses the copyright question involved. This may seem trivial, but English is the official language, or an official language, in many companies, and eHow writers may next find their articles being cloned in India or elsewhere.

If you intend to delete ALL your articles there, you may want instead to edit them to say "This article deleted by the author." and copy/paste that to the 150 words or whatever eHow requires. That way, let THEM have the hassle of deleting the article and freeing up resources on the site. You can even add a statement of WHY the article was deleted to alert the general public, if you wish, to practices you consider unethical. Please do not use this tactic unless you intend to delete every single article there--because of their "secret" algorithm for compensating writers, it might be that you would receive a substantial drop in your earnings, as there have been some rumours of retaliation towards writers who make trouble.

Third Update: 01/11/2010

This issue has finally been resolved, or they say it will be:
Rich posted this on the Site News forum

Dear Members,

We've noticed the buzz around eHow's new UK website and specifically the questions of whether WCP participants are paid for their articles shown on our sister website. We appreciate all the comments, as our community is what makes us special, and wanted to clearly address your concerns. At the moment we do not have a system to pay writers for their articles hosted on eHow.co.uk.

We've listened to your voices and since we are unable pay WCP participants in the UK, we'll be removing your articles from eHow's UK website within the next few weeks. We'll keep you posted on our progress and thank you for your patience and commitment to eHow.

Best Regards,
The eHow Team

Now we know. Demand Studios has been profiting off eHow articles on the UK site for six months, and will, according to this post, for another month or perhaps longer. I'm sure the eHow defenders will jump from every corner of the woodwork, saying, "I'm sure eHow INTENDED to pay us, they just couldn't figure out how to do it." Nonsense. Ethical companies consider the ramifications of such developments and figure out the payment, etc. in advance of such projects.

And a round of applause to the writers who protested, and kept pushing eHow to answer the questions posed. If it had not been for your tenacity, this issue might never have been resolved. I hope Demand Studios has learnt its lesson--just how far they can push eHow writers without being pushed back, and earning from their work without paying them for it seems to be the boundary line.

I've left my original comment on the controversy below.
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In conclusion, I think that eHow must begin to address these issues or completely lose credibility. Certainly deleting forum threads is not the answer! Those who defend eHow's behaviour are deluded, if they think that eHow does not owe its writers anything. The fact that the contracts one signs with eHow are right-to-work contracts does not mean they can do anything they like, just like if you hire an independent contractor, you must agree to give them reasonable working conditions, not expose them to danger without warning them, not require them to work unreasonable hours, etc. A TOS or TOU is not a free-for-all. Simply because eHow writers are free to delete their work or publish it elsewhere does not mean that they have given up all rights to be treated fairly. Ethical companies do the right thing.

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