The Six People You Meet In Freelance Internet Writing Hell
Writing on the internet is a special kind of experience. Unlike print publications, the second your internet article is posted a crowd of eager onlookers is standing by ready to give you instant feedback on your work. Does it connect with people? Did you miss the mark on some seemingly unimportant fact? Do they hate you and your very existence? Do they know a good place to find generic Cialis at bargain basement prices?
Unfortunately, the answer to that and many many other questions is a resounding yes. And snarky commenters aren’t the only people you’ll meet on your path to internet semi-famousness. These are the six people you meet in freelance internet writing hell.
The Fact Checker
What you are writing about is of no importance, The Fact Checker knows about the subject inside and out and will leap at the first opportunity to correct your blatant inaccuracy. That blog post about your favorite blue shirt? Well, the shirt is actually turquoise. The Fact Checker learned this while working in a Malaysian sweatshop as part of their research for an article they wrote on unfair labor practices at The Gap. There will inevitably be a link to this article that will redirect you to a 404 error page. Don’t bother mentioning that though, their quest to make you look like a hack is done. They’ve moved on.
Direct Descendants: The Typo Police, The List Corrector
The Pioneer
The internet is a vast wasteland of thoughts and ideas. According to Technorati, someone creates a new blog every 1.4 seconds. If blogging was a crime, and in some cases it very much should be, it would be the number one source of criminal activity in the land.
With this much creativity afoot, it should come as no surprise that, quite often, some ideas may overlap. The Pioneer does not understand this in any way. That “Best Albums of 2008″ article you were commissioned to write? The Pioneer did it first and, clearly, you stole the idea from them. Creative lightning like that just could not possibly strike twice. Granted, their article was three sentences long and nobody has visited the site they wrote it for in eight months, but that doesn’t matter. The Pioneer has been slighted and is not going to stand for it.
Direct Descendants: The “I Liked This Better When I Read It At…” Guy, The “How Many Times Do I Have To Read An Article Like This?” Guy
The Kindly Self-Promoter
This wolf in sheep’s clothing adores everything you do. You could be writing a manifesto on the need to throw this person’s mother from a moving car, it doesn’t matter, they love it. Why?
First of all, they probably didn’t read a word you wrote. But more importantly, telling you how great you are provides them with a priceless opportunity to show the world what they have to offer without looking like the spammer that they are. Granted, most every website comment section provides a handy spot to include a URL to your own site, but that’s not going to be enough. Nobody clicks on those highlighted names. Not that there won’t be a link there also, it’s just that they’ll go the extra mile and leave you a comment that looks something like this:
“Ha ha! Good point! LOL dude!”
http://somebodypleasereadmyblog.seriouslypleasereadit.net
It’s worth noting that this comment format usually holds true even when your article is pointless and unfunny, like most of mine are.
Direct Descendants: The Viagra Spambot, The Dating Site Spambot, The Dating Site For People Who Take Viagra Spambot
The Firestarter
This lovely soul is more commonly known as a troll. They want nothing more in life than to take the thoughtful discussion your work has inspired and turn it into a flame war of apocalyptic proportions. For them, there is no such thing as a minor issue. In fact, there are no issues, only opportunities.
That joke you made about professional jai alai players didn’t really offend them. Nobody plays jai alai except those two people in the opening credits of Miami Vice. But rest assured, they will take that minor joke and furiously present it to the rest of the group as evidence of your bias towards major sports leagues and your wholehearted support for evil corporations, corrupt governments and imaginary secret societies bent on the destruction of life as we know it.
You know better than to respond, but someone out there inevitably will. And just like that, the war begins.
Direct Descendants: The Racist, The Victim of Your Article’s Totally Non-existent Racism, The Political Zealot, The Conspiracy Theorist
The Craigslist Con Man
Occasionally, after I’ve finished checking for responses to that “Missed Connections” posting of mine regarding that cute Latina girl at Starbucks and whether or not she felt the same fleeting sense of chemistry as I did after I inadvertently knocked her latte out of her hand, I’ll head to the Craigslist.com job postings to see if anyone is in the market for a little internet comedy magic.
Generally, they are not, but there are plenty of postings from people that, after you reply, will ask for an unpublished article that you think would work on their site. You know, so they can get an idea of how you’ll fit in. Oh, and also so they can post it without giving you any credit or compensation.
Because of a mysterious childhood accident involving a radioactive Commodore Vic 20, I’m impervious to internet shenanigans and have luckily never fallen for this scam. But I know fellow writers who have. There are even Craigslist postings warning people not to fall for this type of chicanery. Words to live by.
Direct Descendants: The Hotjobs.com Con Man, Bernie Madoff
The Pirate
When it comes to getting your article noticed, links from other sites are essential. After your article is posted, it’s almost second nature to head to Google and see who appreciated your work enough to post a link to it on their own site for their readers to enjoy. Do this enough, and eventually you’ll encounter the dreaded Pirate.
This shady bastard has no desire to play the middleman. Instead of a short summary and well intentioned link to your article, they’ll just copy the entire thing, remove any evidence that would suggest someone else wrote it, and post it word for word on their site.
Whether you noticed it or not, if you’ve ever written anything of note on the internet, it’s probably happened to you. After the crime goes down, you can go the (in this case fully warranted) Pioneer route and post nasty comments claiming ownership, you can email the snake responsible for the theft, or even try a one two punch of both techniques. It won’t matter, the article is there to stay.
Even more upsetting is the fact that there are news feed services that patrol the internet for content like yours and send it out to morning radio shows who then proceed to read your hard work over the air as if they wrote it. It happened to me at least once that I know of. I was pleased with how my internet objection turned out and I’m glad to report that the radio show in question no longer exists, but personally, I much prefer Cracked.com editor Dan O’Brien’s method for dealing with internet article piracy (Full disclosure alert! I write for Cracked also). I would mention that last link is NOT SAFE FOR WORK, but who am I kidding? You probably work from home anyway.
Direct Descendants: None, these people have no friends.
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You nailed the Pirate. I can’t stand these guys – they rarely seem to have contact info on their site so you can’t intimidate them with threatening emails. What are you supposed to do in this case? Report them to Google so they get banned to supplemental hell?
This is one of the best blog posts I’ve read in awhile. It made me laugh – especially because I’ve encountered all of these individuals on my internet adventures and have finally come to the point where I just sort of label them, laugh, and then go about my business.
One thing – the bio for Adam Brown is empty and there is no link to any website. And yes, I’m praying that by sharing this information I am not going to be relegated to Fact Checker status. I just wanted to read more by the author. So there.
Nice article (too tempting to follow that with a sparm link as in “Great Site! http/durgsRus”) and I agree with your premise and the way you said it. The content thieves are particularly odious. Even if they credit the original with a link, they are trying to make it look like they have something to do with your content.
At the risk of being a contrarian though, I’d point out that for the “Fact Checker”, an opposite article could be written about people who write articles for pay, often in print, and don’t know what they’re talking about. When you read one of these and you know the subject, you can see that the article was based on something weaker in authority than Wikipedia, maybe other stringers’ articles and that is also irritating because it makes you wonder thereafter about the validity of anything your read in the same place. I used to love Omni magazine, for example, and then one day they had an article that was about some field I knew well and it was total BS. The Internet has a lot more BS on it than do the print mags.
But yeah, there’s way too much silliness of the kinds you cite above.
OMG is this comment covered above. No, I’m just expressing a view, it’s ok
This gave me quite a giggle. It’s completely true though.
I’ve encountered quite a few pirates of late. These are the guys that REALLY annoy me.
I have left out any links so not to run the risk of falling under the ‘kindly self-promotor’ role, but that was a great post
Hi Adam, I found myself nodding away whilst reading your article. It’s important to make light of the situation. Otherwise, as I’m sure you’d agree, you’ll be left infuriated, and with no time for anything constructive.
As Ian asks, I’m interested to know how others deal with blog scrapers. Not a week goes by when I don’t notice a ‘new scraper on the block’. Deep-linking within your articles can help attract attention to them, as they’ll be sure to link back to you.
Wow. This article made me evaluate myself to see if I fell under any of these categories. I don’t think I have, but you did mention the pirating part, and I have never actually gone and checked to see if any of my articles(or blog posts) were actually being mentioned or pirated online. On that note, I think I will make sure that I carefully search(not obsessively) Google or another search engine, for my articles.
The kindly self-promoter drives me bonkers. I mean, it’s not as if you can penalize them for being falsely sycophantic. (Can you?? I wish…) You can only hope that others will recognize them for what they are, and not give them the satisfaction of additional traffic. I mean, it’s not as if they added value to the conversation.
As for firestarters, I feel so weak in the face of them. Rationally, I know that it’s best to ignore them. But then I invariably feel the need to rescue others from the meaningless barbs they’ve thrown.
In a completely non-sycophantic or self-promoting way…I enjoyed this post!
With the pirates you could always try contacting their web hosting company and ask to have the site taken down or threaten to file for damages, after all it is copyright protected material that’s being published illegally on their servers. I’ve done this one before and the site, which was hosted in Germany, was taken down within the space of an hour or so.
I employ a proofreader who basically walks behind me on the internet cleaning up my typos, so I can concentrate on content and move on. The typo police ALWAYS beat her to it. It’s like they have typo police radio scan.
With the political zealot, you could prbably include the religious zealot, too, who turns everything into a question of life issues and “god blesses” all the way through. Throw in some Bible quotes and all your problems are solved!
Hey Adam, I know a place to find generic… Never mind. Lame joke. But I found your post hilarious, despite your self-deprecating references. I’ve dealt with the Pirate and found that there’s not you can do, because as Ian says they rarely have contact info. posted on their site.
I hadn’t known about the radio piracy thing – It seems so dirty (but, in a Karmic way, I wonder if this is somehow relativist payback for all of the music I’ve stolen over the years).
Also, this sentence is hilarious: I would mention that last link is NOT SAFE FOR WORK, but who am I kidding? You probably work from home anyway.
Hey, glad you liked the article. As for the pirate, you’re correct, not a whole lot you can do. It did happen to me once and the article was basically a series of photos that they had direct linked to, so I was able to just change the link locations of the photos which in turn broke all of their links. But mostly it’s pretty difficult to track those people down. Just take solace in knowing nobody reads their site anyway.
Great advice, Allena! I like the idea of employing a proofreader!
Yes, I know. I’m flogging a link. But scroll back up to the final paragraph of Adam’s article. You’ve *got* to read the Cracked.com article about Internet article piracy — and the creative revenge it provokes.
Blogging is a non-zero sum world for the most part. The fact that a commenter has to give a website traffic, attention, and often link backs in order to comment provides that blog with increased revenue depending on their advertising structure. Within a niche, readers will often add additional sites to their RSS or bookmarks, but never give up their initial reading list.
I comment for three reasons: 1. It forces me to read blogs and articles within my niche allowing me to learn more about how others are approaching topics. 2. To support blogs that I think are really good and provide information I personally need (reading about blogging itself, outside my niche, has been essential to learning about the field) 3. It’s possible that comment reader will give your blog a test run if you write a good comment (self-interest).
It’s also easy to block an IP address or remove html link from the comment section if you think someone or many people are only commenting for self-interest.
Hey Adam,
How many times do people have to do “these are the people in your Internet neighbourhood” posts before it gets old? I was writing that in 1987, and that was before the Internet was even popular. (And yes, “Internet” should be capitalized…) You can read the original post like this on my own website, http://www.TheVeryFirstDomainNameEverRegistered.com. Even if you’re not interested, check out my domain anyway because I’ve got some great deals on prescription drugs — all legal, BTW
And what is wrong with “quoting” other people’s stuff anyway? Pirating is such a harsh word. It’s like I always say, When it comes to getting your article noticed, links from other sites are essential. After your article is posted, it’s almost second nature to head to Google and see who appreciated your work enough to post a link to it on their own site for their readers to enjoy. So quoting definitely works, no matter what your view on it (especially if you are quoting a writer who is better than you…)
I will say this though Adam, you do have a great writing style. Do you mind sending me a sample or two of your other stuff? I might have a couple of projects in mind for you…
~Graham
PS – Seriously though? Great post Adam! Hope you don’t mind my inspired riff on the subject — all meant in fun…!
yeah man, my blog is like, totally awesome.
5 years ago I though blogs were the stupidest idea, like who would want to hear someone babble on about their trip to the grocery store and how they met their neighbor and then went to starbucks. but there are like 50000 of those kind of blogs. I could write an article about how stupid some blogs are (not this one)…
this post made me laugh, so there. a compliment. enjoy!
I’m guilty of putting my url in the body of the comment, but honestly I did it because of my own ignorance. Now that I know that your name links to your url, won’t do it again. Sorry, I’m the new guy here. As a new freelancer, the articles here have been extremely valuable.
About Craigslist… Has anyone had any good luck with it? I’ve never had anything but scammers.
Awesome….simply awesome! Bravo!!
Mark, I’ve had zero luck with Craigslist. The replies are usually from people offering me the golden opportunity to share in their Google Adsense riches. Not that toiling away hours on end for 12 cents per day isn’t appealing or anything. Either that, or I get no reply but mysteriously get fifty spam emails a day for the next six weeks.
Also, that girl from Starbucks never replied either. Her loss.
WOW. Funny post. I think you got it right on all of these.
ZM
http://www.iamthepirate.com
JK. I keep finding new reasons to check out FreelanceSwitch everyday. Great. Insightful. Or just plain funny posts.
As a professional “Firestarter”, I am incredibly offended by the one sided view you have presented in this article. This kind of bias is disgusting and should not be tolerated, especially on a site the size of FSW. You should be ashamed of yourself for posting such tripe.
if you want to work as freelancer, you have to see this site:
http://www.nextfreelancer.com/
i hope you enjoy it. with me works well.
If your work gets pirated, the host of the infringing website has a duty to remove the offending pages. (and google to take them out of their index)
This is all stated in the DMCA (digital milenium Copyright Act).
I encourage you to read this great blog plagiarismToday.com for great advice about how to deal with pirates and use the DMCA to your advantage.
sorry for the typo above, DMCA is Digital Millenium Copyright Act and can be consulted here as pdf. I encourage every blogger/designer to read it to know what your rights are.
I love you! =P
Oh man I love this one “The Kindly Self-Promoter”. How often do I see this one in comments to blogs all around the web. Stuff like “Awesome Post.”, “Wow, I didn’t know that.”. Wait a minute I think some of these people even live on this website!!! I like to call them the drunk internet troll.
You nailed them all.
I can see it now, the largest war is the war between “The Pioneer” and “The Pirate”. “The Craigslist Con Man” doesn’t know which site to lure his schemes on between the two. “The Firestarter” is trying to decide which site is the likely candidate to burn to the ground first. “The Kindly Self-Promoter” will be the arsonist first victim. And the “The Fact Checker” will be telling all of them “YOUR DOING IT WRONG!”.
Ha, ha, LOL, this post was great …
No, seriously, it WAS. How is it possible that we know the same people? Although, I haven’t met all six of these folks, I’ve met some of them and hear rumors about the others.
At least the Kindly Self-Promotor is usually polite … that’s something, right? I wrote all about it at my blog … oh, never mind … (grin)
Maybe not all the categories need to be consigned to hell. Some like the fact checker and the pioneer seem to be just pains.
Enjoyed your classifications and definitions.
Cheers
Myows: That is excellent advice. I honestly had no idea that resource existed. Thanks for posting the info.
In your last The Pirate link, I have had a similar experience with someone copying work linked to my server / host. I had simply been a gaia profile theme designer (css designs with my own image host) for gaia gold, and she had implemented the design and never paid the gaia gold, in fact they said they didn’t know what I was talking about. So I backed up the originals and reuploaded copies of them with some watermarks that they were a “sample until profile is paid for” … they never paid and ended up changing the profile.
This is really funny!
This was absolutely hilarious. Well done.
If you like this, you might like this to:
http://redwing.hutman.net/~mreed/warriorshtm/artfuldodger.htm
(The “I Liked This Better When I Read It At…” Guy)
ROFL @ “The Dating Site For People Who Take Viagra Spambot”
Hey Jason!
You mean, “YOU’RE doing it wrong”
I just can’t help myself…how can EIGHT people resist pointing that out
Let’s see, where would Mr. glefkhlqewjrqwerjh who has http://www.qwkfjwe.ru and email address df2?=@qwkfjwe.ru who has wertiweriputowi to say as a comment fall under?
The Illiterate Self Promoter?
I shared this on Twitter but had to catch my breath from laughing so hard before I could type a comment! This is flat out the funniest post I’ve read in a long time that perfectly nails the blogging experience. Thanks for the mid-week levity. It was so awesome to read a post that had nothing to do with the crummy economy and that made me laugh out loud for real.
I got hit by the firestarter, but it wasn’t even in a blog. It was on Yahoo! Answers, and I swear it was the most infantile behavior I have ever been subject to. I actually got reamed by a perfect stranger for being curious as to whether or not Patrick Swayze and his wife have children and why or why not. She was so nasty I reported her, and then I blocked her and it went no further. That doesn’t even fall into the category of people who just really want to start stuff, though. It was just nuts. It made me fear for my life when I think about being bored and surfing the internet, lol.
After reading this article. I’m afraid to post comments
I swear I red every single word in it. And I post one line appreciation comments to show my appreciation to for the people who work hard to prepare the articles.
and about “Typo police” Is it bad pointing out something is not right. So that it will be easier to the other readers without a typo :/
Thanks for the laugh. You have seriously nailed these types. I have the most sympathy for the kindly self-promoter because that’s exactly the kind of mistake my well-meaning but clueless mother would make. On the other hand, the other folks are doing it on purpose and need to be ridiculed more often.